The Scorpion's Strike: Empire X

Book 10: Empire series

by Anthony Riches

Genres: Action & Adventure; Historical Fiction

Synopsis

With his compelling Centurions trilogy complete, Anthony Riches returns to his bestselling Empire sequence of novels with his storytelling skills polished to perfection. Set in the second century AD, The Scorpion's Strike continues the story of Marcus Aquila's fight for justice for a family ripped asunder by imperial assassins. Still seeking revenge, Marcus finds himself thrown back into the heart of the chaos that is shaking the Roman Empire to its roots. Fresh from their close escape from imperial betrayal in the German forest, Marcus and the Tungrians are ordered to Gaul, where an outlaw called Maturnus is wreaking havoc. Havoc that may be more than mere banditry, as deserters and freed slaves flock to his cause: rebellion is in the air for the first time in a generation. And if escape from Rome's memories is a relief for the young centurion, he soon discovers that danger has followed him west to Gaul. The expedition is led by Praetorians whom he has every cause to hate. And to fear, if they should discover who he really is. 'A masterclass in military historical fiction' Sunday Express on Retribution

Release date: April 18, 2019

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 368

Sample

To say that this was a challenging book would be putting it mildly. Eighteen months spent ripping through the three novels in the Centurions series left me somewhat lacking in momentum. It’s a pretty good exposition of the Batavian revolt once the reader absorbs the new characters and historical events that set the story up, and if you’ve not read it yet, I encourage you to do so, as I’m quite proud of the way that the story of Marius, Aquillius, Hramn, Alcaeus and Egilhard ended up. The fact that the end result in the form of this book you’re hopefully about to read is as good a book as I’ve written – if only from the writer’s perspective, and you can be the ultimate judge of that bold statement – does nothing to alter the fact that it was longer coming than we all wanted. I suppose it was almost inevitable, given post-trilogy ennui combined with a day job that I enjoy enormously and which puts me to the test on a daily basis.

Which means that my fervent thanks have to go to the people I work with at Hodder & Stoughton for their patience in the face of not one but two major delivery delays. This year’s box of delights at Christmas is going to have to be something special as some small compensation for their having been mucked about so egregiously. Never before have I been quite so conscious of and grateful for the patience displayed by my editor Carolyn, and thanks must also go to several others (Madeleine, Kerry, Rosie and Alice) who variously oil the machinery that turns out the finished product, gets it in front of reviewers and puts me in front of audiences to waffle on about my characters’ imaginary lives. Thank you.

Special thanks also to Sharona, who seems to know more about the Empire series than I do (and given I never want to read the books again once they’re completed, that’s a really good thing). Her brilliant copy editing was as ably assisted as ever by Viv, David and John, my beta readers.

My agent Robin is the reason why I get to put my stories in front of you, and so I remain eternally grateful to him for conjuring up the opportunity.

The biggest thanks, however, go to my wife Helen who, through thick and thin, has always been there to encourage, cajole and occasionally stroke a book out of me and to help celebrate the small victory of those two delightful words (when they’re genuinely earned) – the end. I literally couldn’t do it without you.

‘Tribune!’

The leading rider gestured down the road along which the search party was trotting their horses, drawing his comrades’ attention to a finger of smoke kissing the horizon and waiting while the two officers rode forward to follow his pointing finger. The more senior of them, a strong-jawed man in his early thirties clad in the customary gilded armour and long purple-edged white cloak of a praetorian officer, leaned forward in his saddle and grimaced.

‘Shit! That is most definitely not what I wanted to see. Of course, it isn’t necessarily Maternus.’

The older man, a centurion with more years of service than he was willing to admit, shook his head in disagreement.

‘That’s Maternus, alright, Tribune. Why else do you think we were sent to fetch him back, other than the fear that he’d order his men to do something rash?’

The senior officer nodded grimly.

‘In which case, we need to bring the fool to heel before he does something truly stupid and risks undermining the emperor’s negotiations.’

As they drew nearer to the source of the smoke, it became increasingly evident that they were approaching a settlement. A wooden wall encompassed the usual cluster of roughly-built dwellings, which were carefully positioned for the best possible defence on a raised piece of ground adjacent to a small river, and surrounded by fields of recently turned earth on all sides. The village within the circular wall was already a ruin, dozens of houses consumed by the fires that had been set among them an hour before – but it was only when the detachment rode through the shattered gates that the full truth of what had happened to its inhabitants became clear. The tribune raised a hand to bring the column to a halt as he stared disbelievingly at the scene of devastation.

‘Gods below. What the fuck have you fools done?’

The soldiers scattered among the smouldering remains of what had once been a bustling community turned to look at the newcomers with tired, fatigue-smudged eyes, their faces twisted in disdain as their senior officer shook his head with an expression of growing incredulity. Engaged in the usual post-battle rituals that had become commonplace during the course of a long and bitter war against the German tribes, they were busy carving grisly trophies from the corpses of the dead or digging in the ruins of the buildings for hidden wealth; they looked up briefly before turning back to their tasks. The tribune’s eyes narrowed at their engrossment in the massacre’s aftermath, opening his mouth to bark an order and then pausing as the distant screams and entreaties of mass rape reached his ears in the ruined village’s silence. Dismounting with an expression of growing fury, he strode forward into the settlement’s wreckage with a look of disbelief on his face.

‘Where’s your fucking centurion? Where’s Maternus?’ Looking about him, the incredulous officer set eyes on a man holding a heavy wooden staff bound with brass at both ends who was looking at him with an expression close to contempt. ‘You! Chosen man! Where’s your officer? And show some fucking respect before I have your back scourged until your spine’s on display and leave you to die with blood filling your boots!’

Straightening his posture fractionally, the man in question pointed to the far end of the village, where the despoilment of the captured womenfolk was so obviously taking place.

Nodding grimly, the officer turned back to his party and signalled to the trumpeter, whose horse was alongside that of his grizzled first spear, ignoring both men’s nervous expressions.

‘Sound the recall! Blow it so loud you split the stones!’

A peal of mournful notes echoed across the ruined buildings and scattered corpses, and in their aftermath the tribune bellowed an order at the soldiers scattered throughout the village’s ruins.

‘Get into a fucking formation, you cock-sucking bastards! You can at least pretend to be the men you’re supposed to be in the short time you have left!’

His senior centurion dismounted and walked across to join him, speaking quietly as the men of the century he had been despatched to retrieve wearily gathered into an approximation of a military formation.

‘Tribune, if I might advise you?’

‘Advise me of what, Centurion?’

The older man cast a meaningful glance at the men who were the object of his superior’s ire.

‘These soldiers, Tribune, are exhausted. Literally worn out. We’ve been fighting the Quadi for over two years and yet there’s no sign of them giving up. We’ve beaten them in every battle that we’ve fought against them, but where a civilised enemy would have sued for peace, all they did was melt away into this infernal wasteland and harry us from the shadows. This century alone has lost twenty-five men, and less than half of that in any sort of straight fight.’

The younger man shook his head.

‘We’ve all lost friends to their raiding, Centurion. That’s no excuse for this sort of wanton disobedience. This sort of insubordination can only—’

‘Tribune! Good of you to join us!’

A well-built officer was walking up the village’s main street, pulling on his cross-crested helmet as he approached, his face creased into a wry grin at the sight of his superior’s evident ire. While he seemed at first glance to be as fatigued as his men, his eyes were bright and calculating, clearly taking the measure of the situation before him as he approached the newcomers. Shrugging off the hand that his first spear had placed on his arm, the senior officer strode out to meet him, his fists clenched with uncontrollable anger.

‘Centurion Maternus, what the fuck do you think you’re doing here?’

The two men stood toe to toe, but if the tribune’s expectation that his well-practised show of swaggering authority was going to cow his errant centurion into a show of contrition, he was disappointed.

‘What do I think I’m doing, Tribune? I think I’m following the orders of our beloved emperor Marcus Aurelius. He ordered us to pursue and pacify the Quadi, and I’m following those orders faithfully and diligently. I’ve just pacified the shit out of this nest of vipers, pacified it so well that there’ll never be any risk of my men being stabbed in the back in the night by one of its so-called warriors, or taking an arrow from some anonymous archer raised here.’ He paused for a moment before speaking again, almost spitting out the words. ‘Orders. Fulfilled.’

His superior shook his head in wonderment.

‘You fool! Marcus Aurelius is dead! As you well know! His son is emperor now, and Commodus has ordered us to hold position and await the completion of a peace treaty that will see us home before Saturnalia. Which means that this’ – he gestured furiously about him at the carnage the centurion’s men had inflicted on the village – ‘is nothing less than the most egregious of provocations! It’s no wonder the prefect ordered me to bring you back, rather than leave you to your own devices! This flagrant disobedience of the emperor’s orders can only have one result!’

The other man grinned lopsidedly.

‘And what result might that be? My being reduced to the ranks? Whipped? Scourged? Made an example of, to discourage anyone else who might harbour thoughts of revenge on the bastards who’ve killed so many good guardsmen without ever giving them a chance to defend themselves?’

The first spear leaned close to his superior and whispered something intended solely for the tribune’s ear, but his only reward was a barked laugh.

‘What? Perhaps I might like to be merciful on this occasion and let this ride? Are you serious, First Spear?’ He spread his arms in amazement, shaking his head. ‘The fool has disobeyed an order from the emperor himself, and led his men here to commit an act of mass murder, robbery and rape that has every chance of ruining the peace discussions that are being conducted even now. And who will be the man singled out for punishment by Commodus if that happens, and he fails in his efforts to get himself out of this war-without-end and back to Rome? Me!’ He turned back to face Maternus, his anger uncontrolled in its vehemence. ‘I will be the man to bear the weight of his rage, Centurion, not you, so you can consider your punishment my revenge for the anger that’s likely to be visited on me before long.’

The first spear attempted to speak again, looking about him uneasily at the hardening faces of the soldiers gathered around them, only to find himself cut off by the renegade centurion’s acerbic response.

‘Threatening your career, are we, Tribune? Is that the problem here? Not the murder of innocent civilians, but the fact that we’re pissing on your dreams of climbing the slippery ladder to the rank of prefect?’ Maternus turned and waved a hand at the men behind him, a contorted mask of anger replacing his previous saturnine expression. ‘Our mistake, Tribune, and our grovelling apologies. We made the fatal error of thinking that this was a war we were fighting. Time after time we found the bodies of our friends and comrades in the dawn, lying where they had been killed in the night by silent, gutless killers like these’ – he waved his hand at the scattered corpses of the villagers – ‘and we naturally assumed that we were caught in a fight to the death; dirty, bloody and without mercy. But now I can see that we’re really only here to make sure that you, Tribune, have a good war, and achieve your ambitions. So when the emperor’s pathetic excuse for an heir decides that he’d rather be in Rome than following his father’s path, betraying the loyalty of the thousands of men who died for the empire in this wasteland, obviously we should have smiled and forgiven the bastards who tortured and killed our brothers. All in the cause of you becoming the emperor’s next lapdog!’

The tribune whipped out his dagger, spitting fury as he looked down its blade at his subordinate.

‘That’s your death warrant, right there! I’ll leave your corpse for the crows for that insubordination!’

He lunged at his centurion, his intention to kill him obvious, only to find his knife hand caught in a firm grip. Raising his other hand to free the weapon, he found it similarly captured. The two men stared at each other across the intimate space between them, and while Maternus made no immediate attempt to take the weapon, neither did he allow the tribune to move from the position in which he was caught. Shaking his head in bemusement, he held his superior’s hands an arm’s length away and lowered his voice in a belated attempt at conciliation.

‘We can still put this fire out, Tribune. If you’ll just put the blade away, we can—’

‘Never!’ The senior officer shook his head and spat an order at his own senior centurion. ‘Get this man’s hands off me, First Spear!’

Reaching for his sword, the older man froze as he found himself looking at the points of a dozen spears, the intentions of the men holding them as obvious as shouted threats.

‘That’s a wise choice, Julius. If that blade clears its scabbard, you’ll find out what it feels like to be on the receiving end of a volley of pila.’ Maternus looked into his superior’s eyes, his gaze calm in contrast to the tribune’s straining efforts and furious expression. ‘This is your last chance. Do you really want to die here?’

The tribune’s defiance was incandescent, his face contorted by fury and his efforts to break his centurion’s grip.

‘Your career, Maternus, is over! From this moment, you can never be anything more than a fugitive, harried by Rome’s hunting dogs, with a price on your head that will draw civilised men and barbarians alike to hunt you down, like flies are drawn to shit!’ He spat in the centurion’s face. ‘I spit on you! Rome spits on you! And you will die – all of you that have taken part in this act of disobedience, for which death is the only just punishment – like the animals you are!’

Maternus stared at him in silence for a moment, the saliva running down his face.

‘Very well. If that choice is already made, I see little choice but to follow it through to the end.’

His biceps flexed, cords in his forearms standing out as he forced the tribune’s knife hand down and round, then inexorably turned the blade’s point upwards until it was inches from his superior’s throat. Shuddering with the effort of resisting the stronger man’s steady but irresistible force, the tribune stared white-faced at his subordinate as the hopelessness of his position hit him.

‘Don’t do this! My family …’

The other man smiled, testing his strength with an upward heave of the knife that the tribune barely controlled.

‘Your family will be mortified that you died after the war’s end, shamefully killed as a last resort by a man whose loyalty to Rome you rewarded with threats of death and infamy that drove him to the crime?’ He pushed the blade upwards again, smiling as the point shuddered another inch closer to the tribune’s throat. ‘Your family will wonder what possessed you to provoke men for whom death has lost all fear?’ He pushed again, and the blade’s point slipped another inch closer. ‘Your family, Tribune, will know only this …’ He grunted with sudden explosive effort, ramming the dagger’s blade up into the other man’s jaw, pushing it home until only the handle protruded from his head. ‘They will know that you were found dead on the blade of your own dagger. Forever shamed.’

The dying tribune staggered backward, choking convulsively as blood ran down his throat and then, as his eyes rolled back, slumped back onto his senior centurion.

‘You’ve … killed him? You’ve killed a fucking tribune!’

Maternus smiled tiredly at the first spear’s amazement, drawing his sword and raising a questioning eyebrow.

‘He really left me no choice, you can see that. But you tried to prevent it, and the men behind you are no more guilty of any crime than we are. I have no desire to spill the innocent blood of fellow guardsmen.’

The other man shook his head stubbornly.

‘If I go back to the prefect with the story that I wasn’t able to stop you, he’ll have me scourged until I’ve bled to death. There are better ways for a man to die.’

‘I understand.’ The renegade officer shook his head sadly, then stamped forwards and put the tip of his gladius through his superior’s throat, dropping him choking and gurgling into the dust as his blood spread in a dark pool underneath his writhing body. He stared expressionlessly down at the dying man as he wiped and sheathed the sword. ‘May you find your ancestors waiting with a jug of wine when you cross the river. I’ll make sure you have a coin for the ferryman.’

‘What about the rest of them?’

He turned to find his chosen man at his shoulder.

‘The rest of them? They’re just as much the victims of this war as we are.’ He strode out in front of the remaining horsemen, raising his bloody hands for them to see. ‘You are free to leave, brothers, and all I ask in return is that you take a message back to the praetorian prefect for me! Tell him that the blood on my hands is as much his fault as mine! Had he sent a better man to bring us back into the fold, then all might have been well; instead, his puppet tribune has rendered me, and as many of my men as will follow me, as outcasts! We know that we are under threat of execution from this moment on. But let him know that I am placing Commodus under exactly the same threat! When the time is right, when my plans have come to maturity, I will have revenge on behalf of every man who has died to no purpose in this war he’s so eager to abandon!’ He gestured to the southern horizon, his voice dropping in volume to an amused, conversational tone. ‘On your way, brothers, and watch out for those treacherous German bastards. I need you to return to the cohorts safely and to spread the word as widely as you can. Rome has not heard the last of Maternus.’

He waited until the last of the horsemen was away through the settlement’s broken gate, the two dead men’s bodies tied across the saddles of their mounts, then turned to his chosen man.

‘Get the men ready to march, we need to move on. We’ll head west, away from the army, and stick to the woods. The roads will be thigh deep in cavalry within a day or two, all looking to collect on the reward that prick of a prefect will put on my head for killing his favourite bum boy. And I’m not ready to have my head paraded in front of the Guard just yet. After all, we’ve spent the last two years taking lessons in how to avoid the Roman army at the hands of the best in the business; now it’s time to put all that learning into practice, I’d say, and see how long we can stay alive. Who knows, we might even make half-decent bandits?’

‘You’ll be happy to get back to some proper soldiering, will you, Tribune? Now that you’ve finished creeping round the swamps and forests at the end of the world kidnapping women, that is?’ Gaius Rutilius Scaurus frowned at his senior centurion’s jest for a moment without speaking, but far from being intimidated by the disapproval of his superior, Julius shook his head and chuckled.

‘Yes, I know. There aren’t any swamps and forests in Germania – that’s all just an invention of men who’ve never been there to make it sound more outlandish, and to imply that its people are so lacking in civilised values that Romans should feel good about enslaving them.’

The muscular first spear turned and looked at the small party that was waiting on the transit barracks’ parade ground, eager for the order that would dismiss them back to their various centuries after their long ride south from the empire’s northern frontier to the gates of Rome.

‘Let’s have a look then, shall we, and see what you brought me back from the barbarian north? The men we lost died with honour, I presume? Qadir, you seem to have brought back somewhat less men than you took with you.’

A tall, rangy easterner in the scaled armour and crested helmet of a centurion stepped forward and saluted, his eyes seemingly fixed on the horizon.

‘Four of my men died on the Germans’ blades, First Spear, and not all of them quickly.’

The Hamian’s usual soft voice was edged with something harder at the reminder of a loss whose scars were not yet fully healed. Centurion of the cohort’s Hamian archers, he had watched his closest friend die by his own hand as a means of avoiding the inevitable revenge of their enemy for the deaths he had inflicted upon them, and had yet to reconcile himself to his comrade’s absence. ‘I could not have asked any more of them than to die in the favour of the goddess they worshipped every single day of the years we knew each other. And I am proud to have called each of them my comrade and my friend.’

Julius nodded his head in recognition of the archers’ sacrifice.

‘Thank you, Centurion. I share your pain at those losses and your pride in the way your men chose to meet their ends. I will sacrifice with you to ask for peace for their spirits. Dubnus?’

Another officer took a pace forwards, snapping to attention with a heavy axe resting on one shoulder. Heavily muscled, and just as impressively bearded as his superior, he turned an unblinking gaze on the senior centurion.

‘Three of my brother warriors died, two of them overrun by the Bructeri horde and the third when a wound in his foot turned rotten and infected his blood. We were fortunate that the naval medicus treating him had the milk of the poppy to ease his passage across the river to the underworld.’ Dubnus frowned at the memory of his soldier’s painful, tortured death. ‘But he died with his axe in his hand, his brothers around him to give him strength in his passing, and the blood of many men painted across his armour. You would have approved of the way each of them took their leave of this life.’

The hulking first spear inclined his head in respect.

‘There was always going to be a price to pay, given the paths you were walking.’ He raised an eyebrow at the big centurion. ‘Although I see you still display the same gods’ charmed life as ever. Are you still blowing that horn every night?’

‘Yes, I am.’ Centurion of his pioneer century, and one of the few men on the parade ground who could match Julius for both height and breadth, the Briton looked down his nose at his superior in a way that he knew was guaranteed to irritate the older man. ‘And if I hadn’t blown it as loudly as I could a few weeks ago, then most of us wouldn’t be here.’

Julius shrugged.

‘That’s a story I suspect will have grown in the telling. But it still sounds like a bull having a noisy shit, right? You’d better go and practice some more, and take your muscle sisters with you. You too, Qadir, your archers will be keen to get back to their boyfriends.’ Ignoring their mutual disgruntlement, he moved on down the line as the pioneers and bowmen fell out and headed for their respective barracks, their centurions nodding at each other in mutual respect as they parted. ‘And I see you didn’t manage to shake off any of the less disciplined members of the cohort either, Tribune.’ He paused in front of a pair of soldiers whose stares remained steadfastly locked on the barrack behind him. ‘Sanga, every bit as shifty as you were before, if not even more so, and Saratos, looking even more like a butcher’s guard dog than usual. You two can both bugger off back to the Fourth Century, where I happen to know your centurion is waiting excitedly at the thought of hearing all your thrilling stories. Either that, or he wants to slap you both around just enough to show how much he’s missed you. I’ll let you work out which is the most likely. Dismissed.’

The two soldiers saluted and turned away. Sanga nudged his Dacian companion, urging him towards the gate and the city’s myriad possibilities, but Julius’s parting comment left them in no doubt as to what was expected of them.

‘You’re to report to Otho immediately, you pair of halfwits. He’s expecting you to resume your duties as watch officers, and should you disappoint that expectation, he’s under firm instructions to communicate just how let down he feels, and in his usual direct style. Don’t say you weren’t warned!’

He grinned as the two men changed direction and walked somewhat less eagerly towards the Fourth Century’s barrack, then turned back to stare at the remaining men of the party that had gone to Germania at the imperial chamberlain’s orders, addressing his regard to a pair of soldiers, one old enough to be the other’s grandfather. They were standing alongside a pair of barbarians, one of whom, the tribune’s German slave Arminius, was simply tall and powerful, while the other was a head taller than the first spear. A captive Briton who had long since become part of Scaurus’s familia, his body was slabbed with the muscle needed to heft the beaked warhammer that he held casually, its iron head heavy enough to make the simple act of lifting it from the ground a strain for any of his comrades. Stopping in front of the younger of the two Tungrians, he shook his head in apparent disgust as the other soldier, a veteran old enough to have retired years before, looked back at him with his usual calculating expression.

‘And here, despite the hopes and expectations of every gambling man in his cohort, is Morban, back among us without so much as a scratch.’ He looked the standard bearer up and down before speaking again. ‘And looking just as unsavoury as ever, with half a dozen punishable offences in the state of your uniform and equipment alone that I can see with one glance. On your way, statue waver, and get yourself smartened up before I’m forced to have you dragged in front of your centurion for judgement and a beating. And play nicely with your comrades; there are soldiers under my command who’ve not felt the gentle caress of your fingers on their purses for so long that they’ve almost forgotten the meaning of fear.’ He flicked a glance at the young soldier standing next to the veteran, half a head taller than the last time he had seen him, and smiled despite himself at the almost comical mask of seriousness on the boy’s face. ‘And you can take this young bullock with you. I wouldn’t have recognised the boy if he’d not been standing next to you. Have you dipped your spear in blood yet, Lupus?’

Morban answered for his grandson, an indignant tone in his voice.

‘My grandson was true to his blood, when the time came. He did his duty, and killed his first man, First Spear.’

Julius nodded appreciatively, but any further comment was forestalled by the German Arminius, leaning towards him and speaking quietly but firmly.

‘I see the seeds of greatness in the boy, and the priestess confirmed as much. He’ll do more than just soldier for you; you can be assured of that.’

Julius raised an eyebrow at the interjection, tapping the German on his chest with the tip of his twisted vine stick.

‘Whereas all I see is that the tribune still hasn’t taught you the difference between intelligence and insubordination, eh, Arminius? You’re dismissed, all three of you …’ He shot a glance at the impassive giant of a man standing alongside them. ‘And take that monster Lugos with you. I want to have words with your officers without having to tolerate a running commentary from either you, slave, or you, standard bearer. The boy can tell me about his exploits in the dark German forests soon enough, but for now the grown-ups have more important matters to be discussing.’

He waited until the four men were out of earshot before turning back to Scaurus and the centurions standing beside him.

‘Word travels faster than horses when there’s bad news to be told, and we heard most of the story of your trip north months ago. How you managed to get your hands on the woman the imperial chamberlain sent you to capture, and then lost her back to the tribe you stole her from as the price of your lives.’

Scaurus shrugged.

‘I’ve always found it wise, First Spear, to take all news from far off places, be it good or bad, with a grain of salt, just in case it turns out to have been amended to suit the teller’s bias. And who was it that told you all that? Nobody outside the imperial palace would have had access to that sort of information.’ Scaurus looked at Julius questioningly, but the big centurion simply returned the stare in silence, knowing that his superior already knew the answer to his question well enough. ‘Cleander?’

‘One of his freedmen. He came down the hill a few days ago and told me that you’d be back in the city inside a week, and that I was to ready both cohorts to march. Your friend the chamberlain has plans for us, it seems.’

The youngest of the three remaining centurions standing alongside Scaurus shook his head angrily, putting his hands on his hips and staring over the transit barracks’ low walls at the bulk of the Aventine Hill rising behind them