Wagon wheels creaked along a cambered road, rocking the passengers like a cradle; drizzle pattered the roof.
Lucius Bucero bobbled his head, falling in and out of a nap.
"Halt!" A gruff voice boomed from a distance ahead. The wagon slowed to a halt.
Bucero yawned, drawing a hand to his mouth. Feeling a tug on his arm, he glanced to his left at the wagon's rear. A swarthy youth with a headful of dark ringlets lifted the horsehide and leaped out.
"Dracus?" Groggy and sore, he rubbed his eyes. He slung his sack to his shoulder and clambered out. Stopped by a small group of guards, five wagons had been stabled on the roadside before theirs.
"Dracus!" Bucero husked at the swift shadow disappearing into the woods off the road.
Two other men climbed off the wagon.
"Any idea what's going on?" asked the short one, who wore a fur vest over a long beige tunic of flax. Girthed around his potbelly was an ebony leather belt. A small stone hammer and an iron plier, typically wielded by a goldsmith, hung from either flank.
Bucero glanced over his shoulder nervously and shook his head.
The taller man leaned forward on tiptoes. He looked gaunt. Days' worth of stubble shadowed a square jawline. He wore his hair down, in shoulder-length chestnut strands. His vulpine eyes of the same color as his hair roamed Bucero and the woods behind him. "The usual check on travelers," he said. "We aren't too far from Pethens now, and security gets strict, you know."
"Like I want to leave my wife and children and come here!" the man who might be a goldsmith humphed. "They've asked for my service!"
"Oh yeah?" the other didn't sound without mockery.
"I've been summoned by the Praetor's order," the short one boasted. "And I'll be reporting to the Imperial Palazzo."
"Haven't we all?"
The might-be goldsmith laughed off the other man's jest when the coachman leaned out.
"It's more than just a usual check," he said, lowering the brim of his hat. "They are looking for someone, see?" he swung his head to the front, where a guard was unscrolling a drawing of what seemed to be a young man.
Bucero squinted, trying to take a better look, as did others who had now vaulted off the wagon. Glancing between the commotion on the roadside and the rustling woods, Bucero gritted his teeth and took to his heels.
"Dracus!" he called once he pulled enough of a distance from the road. "Dracus!"
He rubbed his brow greasy with sweat. Since he met the boy, his life had been zigging and zagging in all unexpected directions that wore but thrilled him inexplicably at the same time. The last few weeks had opened his eyes to what he'd rather not see. And the more he had seen, the more he wanted to keep looking.
"Dracus!" he yelled again, his voice lost in the early morning mist, a rise of zephyr caressing the foliage. Under layers of fallen leaves in a palette of the fall, jutting gnarls of roots caught his feet.
"What?" Dracus' voice came behind him.
Bucero stumbled, groping for balance, his other hand clapping his chest. "Do you have to scare me like that?"
"Don't be such a girl."
Bucero glanced at the boy, his question about the guards laden on the tip of his tongue. "Why did you run?"
Scampering ahead, Dracus hopped between rocks. "I need to see the riparian plantations, take notes and samples of the soil, so I can make comparisons when I go north."
"I thought we were going to Pethens."
"Stopping." Dracus swung himself onto a low-hanging branch. "I said nothing about staying." He vaulted atop the branch and balanced himself, holding out both arms horizontally. "But don't worry. I'll stay till you finish the exam. And until then, you can stay with me as my guest." Reaching for a higher branch, he leaped.
"You'd do that?" Bucero chortled, lifting his eyes. "And do you have to climb that high? It's making me dizzy."
"Interesting."
"What is?"
"Up here," the boy spared him a downward glance as he went forth. "I can see much further, and it's more exhilarating the higher I go. But somehow, you get dizzy by watching me from below. Very interesting."
"If you're asking whether I fear for your life that you might fall," Bucero paused for a breath, pretending to deliberate. "Nah, I am only concerned with the prospect of you crushing on my head and killing us both." He shrugged, quite pleased with himself.
"You've got a glib tongue, Bucero. You should loosen up and use it more often in the future."
Bucero smiled wryly at that. He used to believe in his somewhat eloquence and sense of justice as if these attributes alone would suffice to earn him a future. How callow! It took him thirty years to finally understand why men often acted like boys, and boys men. For the last thirty years, he had only learned about life in theory, and all the theories had kept him a boy. It wasn't until he had tried to truly live his life in the last few weeks that he realized how clunky were the theories when applied. Hence the boy threw himself headlong back into the tumult of the real world, hoping to form a theory of his own as a man.
"Turn to the downslope on your right." Dracus hollered from above.
Bucero cocked a brow. "Why?"
"What I can see from above, aren't you a bit curious? Turn to your right, and you'll see what I see now." Scything his slender limbs between numerous broadleaved hangings, the boy swung himself where he beckoned.
Bucero acquiesced. Tilting his body sideways, he skidded down the slope Dracus had mentioned and arrived at a glade of birches. Gold mist seeped through thinning clouds, shrouding a dewy meadow studded with dandelions and thistles. Next to it, a burgling creek led to a pair of obelisks. With one towering over the other, they cast slanting shadows in a veil of forest mist.
"What is this place?" Bucero muttered, halting his feet.
A shadow whooshed overhead. Dracus landed on four. "No idea," he dusted off his hands. "Except this is the jurisdiction shared by the Scipios and the Gaius." Gliding his fingers along the stone surface of one of the obelisks, he examined the bas-reliefs. "These aren't their glyphs."
"You mean the Glyphs of Clans? Aren't they supposed to be some secret codes exclusive to members of the Triumvirate? How do you know …" Bucero gulped back his words along with the brisk air of the woods. The temperature seemed to have dropped closer to the creek. His question regarding whom the guards were looking for came back hot on his lips.
Dracus only darted a quizzical glance sidelong at him before returning to surveying the obelisk. "These carvings share the same regularity used in spell writing," he observed, stooping with a hand on his lap. "Look."
Lowering his head next to the boy, Bucero scanned the cryptic carvings of shapes and patterns that looked more like art from a lost world than a message. "Um," he harrumphed, "what am I supposed to be looking at here?"
"The inverted triangle with a middle line is the symbol for the heart. A heart with a scratch mark on top means death. If the heart is dead, the soul is disqualified for the judgment of Kish, and hence the soul shall never enter the second life. This is a dark spell, a curse, more exactly." He looked through the obelisks. Across the creek sprawled a large heap of dirt with structures for what seemed to be a chimney.
"Why would anyone carve curses on some slabs in the middle of nowhere?"
"Nowhere to you, somewhere to others." Dracus looked over his shoulder, a frown clasping his brows. Putting a forefinger to his mouth, "Men are coming," he whispered.
They ducked down, squatting close to the ground in a nearby ditch hidden behind a row of birches. Wheels squeaked from a distance. Two infantry soldiers peered into sight, trundling a rough-hewn box strapped atop a trolley toward the creek. A couple of officers accompanied them.
"Of all the jobs across the Renania, this has gotta be the worst," the officer in the back caviled.
"Shut up!"
"No one else gets to do anything. Why us? It's a good day back in the city, you know? Why do I get to march to the woods of the dead while others frolic with the living?"
"I swear to the Gods I'll make sure you join the dead if you don't shut it!"
Dracus peeped from behind straws of grass. "Praetor's guards," he mouthed the words.
Bucero nudged, poking his head as he ventured a glimpse for himself. All four men were fully armed. The whiny was clean-shaved with bluish eyes and chubby cheeks that gave him a beguiling innocence. The bitter one near the front looked as wicked as he sounded, poised to peck at anything with his hooked nose. Both having their swords girded in a leather scabbard, they swaggered in the manner of a soldier who had spent time in the army but never fought wars.
"Gods blight," the hooked nose grumbled as they stopped by the heap. "Where's the guard?"
"Hectius!" the whiny yelled. "Where're you slacking now? Come out, and let's get the shit over with!"
Bucero felt a prod in his arm. He looked beside him.
Dracus had paled. "We need to leave, now!" the boy muttered.
"And where exactly do you think you're going," a towering shadow brayed from their back.
Bucero shivered, dropping his jaw as he slowly turned his head. Half a yard behind them glinted a pair of silver cuirasses and greaves. A large sabaton clunked as a man almost seven feet tall thudded a foot on the stump of a fallen birch.
"Now, this is what I call an interesting hunt," the giant rumbled, swooping up Dracus and Bucero from the ditch in either hand. Grabbing their collars, he hauled them across the creek.
The whiny glowered, "Where the fuck did these two come from?"
"I should ask you the same! You cretins are so loud you didn't even notice you're tagged!" Rumbling his complaint, the big man shoved his captives on the dirt and turned to the soldiers manning the trolley. "Tie them up to a tree! And as for you morons," he turned his eyes back to the officers, "unload the box and get to work!"
"Fuck you, Hectius!" the one with the hooked nose hooted. "Unload the shit yourself! Our job is to escort! And it is done!"
"And mine is to guard the blighted gate!"
"Guys!" the whiny hooted, barging in. Drawing a small dagger from a sheath under his surcoat, he threw a thumb over his shoulder at the trunk where Dracus and Bucero were being bound back to back. "How about we let them decide?"
"How?" Hectius bellowed.
The whiny hefted the dagger, tossing it to the air, and caught it with the other hand. Grasping the grip in the crook of his thumb, he flicked his wrist with some agility. A thread of glint slung through the air between Hectius and the hooked nose. Quivering with a boing, it buried its tip into the trunk above Bucero's head.
"That," the whiny crew, smirking. "Ten points for a throw between the eyes. Whoever gets the lowest point gets his hands dirty. I call for the pretty boy."
Hectius hissed with a humph. Clumping back to his captives, he wrenched the dagger free from the trunk.
"Wait!" Bucero howled and gulped, the chill air chafing his throat like hot sand.
"What, you got a last word?" Hectius mocked with a laugh, a feral snarling.
Bucero laughed along wretchedly. "Ample ways you can split the work, m'lords, I'm sure. But if you keep us alive, you won't have any work to split! My nephew and I can do anything, right, nephew?" He tossed his head to the back.
"You idiot!" Dracus booted him on the calf. His voice quivered like the dagger that was wobbling over their heads. "Whatever they're guarding, clearly they don't want anyone to know! And if we see it, we're dead!"
"We're dead anyway!" He buzzed the words like a bee. "You have a better way out? If not, play along!"
"Yes, uncle!" Dracus quavered a yell. "I can do anything!"
All three guffawed. Even the two soldiers ventured a chuckle.
"Do we look like fools to you?" Hectius swooped back to them, his bloodshot eyes glaring. "You didn't think we'd think of it if we could just catch some peasants and let them do the work?" he sputtered.
Bucero blinked in the drizzle of spits. Icy sweat trickled, stinging his skin. He grinned carefully so he wouldn't weep. "You misunderstood me, m'lord. Let my nephew and I do the work for you, then sell us to the slave traders at Praetor's Port! I'm a strong man, and as you can see, my nephew here is a pretty boy! Plentiful brothels will pay a good price for him! And who'll believe what we say once we are slaves? It's a good deal, m'lords!" Beseeching the officers with his eyes, "Think about it!" he added.
Another boot landed on his calf.
Bucero gnashed his teeth to what must look like a manic smile as he forewent a cry of pain.
The three exchanged a look.
"You pitiful piece of shit," the one with the hooked nose snorted. "I've heard tales of men braving death to avoid slavery, but never the other way around."
"Well, I actually agree with the bloke." The whiny tittered, snatching his dagger from Hectius with a swing of his arm. "He may look dumb and ugly, but he has a good point. It is a pretty good deal." He ambled to the truck and glided the tip of his dagger up to Bucero's chin.
Snap.
Bucero winced, shutting his eyes. When he plucked up the gut to risk another glimpse of light, he gulped with shudders. The rope around his chest was cut.
"Get to work, you two!" the whiny ordered as he shot daggers at the two soldiers.
They obliged, trotting up to the captives.
They were around the same age as Dracus, Bucero noted. The short one had dark eyes with lighter stripes spreading from the iris like bands of onyx. He wasn't much less nervous. Bucero felt his sweaty palms shaking when he tied and now untied him from the trunk.
The same rope that tethered Bucero to the tree was now leashed around his neck. The two young soldiers prodded him and Dracus with the hilts of their swords to the trolley. With Dracus at the front and Bucero in the back, they wheeled inside the tunnel, whose entrance Hectius had unbarred. Into the drafty darkness, dust rose in all shapes, entangling them with a chill embrace. A strike of light flared up from behind as the short one with onyx eyes lit a torch and placed it on a sconce. Bucero blinked, adjusting his vision. Under a dome of rammed earth laid a large furnace connected to an intricate pipework sprawling from the center overhead.
"Both of you," said the tall one, having mustered up a commanding tone. "Unload the box and chuck what's in there to the furnace." Then, skewing around to his partner, he asked, "Do we have enough dry wood?"
The short one had lit another torch and disappeared into a shaft on the left. "Possibly," his voice ricocheted. "Might need a restock soon." Flames swayed along the walls as he craned his neck on the way out and caught Bucero looking his way.
Bucero flung his eyes back to the rough-hewn box. On three, he and Dracus lifted it off the trolley. However heavy, it felt lighter than he had expected. They picked up a claw hammer left in the corner to pull the nails off the lid as told. Dracus coughed, eyeing him, then the hammer.
Bucero shook his head. For the first time, he actually had a plan.