Sidling up close to Ariazate, Lucius leaned into her ear. “Where are we going? You were supposed to be our guide.”
She nodded nervously. “We need to ride east and then ride around the south side of the lake. The mountains we need to go to are on the southeastern corner of the lake. There’s a peak, high in the clouds, where people don’t go for any reason. I believe that’s where we’re supposed to go.”
“OK.” He stared at her for a moment, then reached out and patted her leg. “Alright, we’re in your hands. Point me in the direction, and we’ll go.”
Lucius’s men made quick work of their tasks, driven by terror of the monsters that had torn apart their comrades and decimated their numbers, thoughts of Parthians temporarily forgotten. After his men had the horses repacked, he ordered the pack animals and spare mounts forward with an escort. He and the remaining men would screen their advance from the rear and keep the monsters off them as best as they could while they worked their way out of the fortress.
After they cleared the gates—the men he left to guard the gates were dead—they rode hard, switching horses frequently and using every trick Syphax had taught him about horse care. Every strange sound caused hands to clench weapons and heads to swivel around. When the creatures made an attempt on the rear of Lucius’s line, he wheeled a detachment around and charged the monsters, churning several of them under the hooves of their tired ponies.
After that, the nhang, or whatever they were, merely trailed them as if waiting for stragglers to fall by the wayside to be collected and consumed. Whatever the reason they stayed so close behind, the result was exhaustion for both people and beasts. Only the terror of what had happened that night and the constant tails kept them men alert. He had no idea how the di inferi traveled so long and fast on foot, but it only added to the terror of their predicament.
When the eastern horizon began to lighten with the approach of dawn, the creatures disappeared like mist before the wind. By the time the sun was visible, no one had heard or seen any of the monsters in a while. As soon as the sun climbed above their heads, Lucius breathed a sigh of relief and issued orders to find a place to camp. They’d been moving for nearly thirty-six hours straight, and they had to stop.
Tucked into a narrow ravine, they quickly erected stakes across the entrance, leaving a minimal watch while everyone else bedded down. Ariazate and Tigran had already found a nook out of the way and had curled up in their blankets, swords resting by their hands. Stripping out of his armor quickly, he rolled up nearby and fell into exhausted oblivion.
TWELVE
After a few hours, they woke, bleary-eyed and sleep deprived, and continued their journey. Lucius had no idea what waited for them the next night, but he wanted as much distance as possible between his people and the monsters as he could before the sun abandoned them for the day.
By the time evening approached, the scouts Lucius had sent back down their trail were reporting armed men in the distance. They couldn’t tell if they were Parthians or Armenians investigating the deaths at Gorneae, but it didn’t matter. At this point, Armenian troops were probably reporting to the puppets set in place by the Parthian king. His sixty Romans would quickly find their cadavers stripped of possessions and tossed into a ravine to feed the carrion animals.
With armed men trailing them during the day and monsters at night, it was only a matter of time until one or the other—maybe both—caught them, and they’d be too tired to put up any kind of fight. He couldn’t bet on the creatures giving up after only the first night of pursuit. He didn’t know if they were intelligent or simply following their base instincts.
Lucius nudged his horse toward Ariazate and her mount. “Zati, can you answer some questions?”
The young woman shook herself out of the stupor she rode in and yawned. “What? Yes.”
“What are nhang? They look like men.” Though, he’d never seen a man with fangs or claws like that or the burning hatred and hunger in their eyes. It was the eyes that haunted him the most.
“I don’t know. They’re vile, evil beings. I don’t know if they’re spirits or a physical monster created by the gods. In some tales, it’s only one monster, in others, it’s a race of them. They’re tricky, false. They befuddle the mind and senses to lure in their victims.” She made a gesture against the evil.
He narrowed his eyes and leaned closer. “Do the creatures that attacked us last night match up with the tales of the nhang?”
“I don’t know. Maybe in some ways. The blood feeding definitely, but the nhang is supposed to use the shape of a woman to lure in its victims or take the shape of serpent-monster so it can live in the river.” She shivered.
“Huh.” Lucius didn’t know what to make of it.
Monsters were supposed to be the provision of children’s tales and priests. Now he lived a monster story and had to find a way to get those under his command and protection out of it alive. Monsters and Parthians. When he left Antiochia, he’d thought they’d been given a reasonable mission—one far safer than the years of war he’d just survived, though not without injury. He flexed his left hand. The tug of the wound still pulled a bit in his forearm between elbow and wrist.
Making it out alive and without lasting injury, he’d counted himself lucky. Perhaps he’d have been luckier to have lost the ability to hold his shield. He’d have been honorably discharged and sent home. With thoughts of home, he wondered what his parents were doing. They were probably preparing for the fall harvests and all the commerce that entailed. He’d be helping his father organize the freight to the legionary forts that sat on the Rhenus separating the empire from Germania Magna. Now, he wasn’t sure if he’d even make it out of these mountains.
The minimal sleep they’d crammed into the morning was already wearing off as everybody, human and animal, dragged their feet, heads dipping low with fatigue. They couldn’t make it through another night like the previous. If he asked it of them, they’d try to push through, but what shape would they be in by the morning? He knew his men’s conditioning. Moving hard and fast as the Parthians pursued them had burned off a lot of fat they’d layered on during the easy march escorting Trajan back toward Roma. They were tough bastards, but he couldn’t burn them out for nothing.
“We need to find somewhere to hole up for the night,” Lucius mumbled.
“What, Centurio?” Mylitos asked.
“Go find Venextos for me, Mylitos.” Embarrassed to be caught talking to himself, he needed to consult with his second-in-command.
Venextos raised a hand in greeting as he rode up. “You called, Centurio?”
Lucius nodded. “Ariazate, would you join us?”
He pulled his horse out of the procession and rode away from the trail, his second and the Armenian behind him. Settling at the edge of the tree line, he turned and watched his tired men trudge on.
“We have to get under cover for the night. The men need rest. I don’t know if those things will be back or not, and we need to get defenses set up.” He turned to Ariazate. “I don’t suppose you know about a handy fortress that might scare those creatures away?”
She shook her head. “I know where we’re going, but not about the land between. I’m not a guide. I’ve been away from my home for too many years.”
He’d never asked her when she’d been forced to leave her home, or if she’d ever known life as a free person. Even if she’d been free, she would have been a child and not free to roam about a dangerous country. He sometimes forgot how very young she was.
“Fair enough. Venextos, let’s double the number of our forward scouts and send them out wide looking for a place we can hole up for the night.” He scratched the growing beard on his chin. At nearly two weeks old, it itched and irritated his skin. But it was a minor annoyance, and it felt nice to have a mundane annoyance to distract his mind from the terrible burden of leadership with two enemies stalking them night and day.
“Right. I’ll lead them myself.” Venextos saluted and turned his horse, riding back toward the column.
“Ariazate, if you see any of your countrymen, wave me down so we can speak with them. We need local intelligence.”
She nodded. “If they don’t just hide…”
“We’ll offer to pay. I have a fair bit of coin with me for such occasions.” He nudged his back toward the line, picking up his pace so he could return to his position in the center of the line. The sound of Ariazate’s horse trailed him until it melded into the sound of feet and hooves marching.
The work to set up their fortifications for the night had been intense. The scouting parties had found a small creek running through a ravine with rock shelves hanging over it in places. Finding a wide enough spot after a bend in the ravine, they set a forest of stakes on both sides of their encampment.
As Lucius sat by his fire, trying to warm some water so he could wash off the grime of two days of hard riding and any remainders of the blood from the temple, one of his men approached, waiting to be called forward.
