The Wolf's Gold by Anthony Riches Page A

doesn’t sound like much, but we’ll be laying about a million of them, so I think it’s safe to say that you’ve all got a full day ahead of you.’
    At his command the waiting centurions stepped up to the mass of soldiers, detailing each of their men a party of ten miners to command. Scaurus, his lips pursed in speculation, watched Theodora walk away in the company of a pair of heavily built bruisers, whose role in life was clearly to ensure that she remained untroubled in a sea of sex-hungry labourers.
    ‘What do you think?’
    Julius stared at the miners for a moment, seeing a combination of resentment and disgusted resignation in their eyes before answering Scaurus’s question with an amused expression.
    ‘What do I think, Tribune? Are you asking me about this rabble of work-shy tunnel rats, or the woman?’ He waited until Scaurus turned back to face him with a rueful grin. ‘I think they hate us marginally less than they fear the Sarmatae, which is only marginally less than they fear us. I think they’ll show us their arses when we march away, and piss in our water supply given half a chance. But I also think we’ll have a wall across the valley by nightfall tomorrow, and a few nasty little tricks up our sleeve besides. And that, Tribune, is all I really care about.’
    He saluted and went off to join the officers marshalling their work gangs into some sort of order, leaving Scaurus staring out across the valley with a calculating gaze.
    Left behind in the Tungrian camp when the centuries marched out about their various tasks, Lupus found himself alone for the first time in months. Knowing that the few remaining soldiers left to guard the camp would be of little entertainment, he took up his practice sword and shield and set about going through the set fighting routine that Arminius had taught him, and which he was expected to practise every morning and evening without fail. The boy was beginning to understand the German’s purpose in teaching him by means of the routine’s apparently endless repetition, as his wrists and ankles strengthened and his stamina improved to the point where he was no longer walking through the moves after an hour’s practice, but still fresh enough to perform in almost as sprightly a fashion as when he had begun. Stabbing and cutting at imaginary enemies, ducking and weaving in response to their attacks, he flowed from attack to defence and back again, building towards the routine’s final move, a stab to the front while thrusting his shield to the rear to deflect an attack from behind, followed by a lightning-fast spin and hack with the sword’s blade. Grunting with the effort as he made the penultimate attack, he spun into the routine’s last move only to find himself face-to-face with a slightly smaller boy whose eyes were wide at the sight of his gyrations. Surprised, he stepped back with the shield instinctively raised.
    ‘Who are you?’
    The answer was instant, the younger child untroubled by their apparent age difference.
    ‘I’m Mus. What are you doing?’
    Lupus frowned, thinking the answer altogether too obvious.
    ‘Practising. Arminius says practice makes perfect.’
    ‘Who’s Arminius?’
    A proprietorial note entered Lupus’s voice.
    ‘My sword teacher. He’s German.’
    ‘Do you live with the soldiers?’
    Lupus nodded, and Mus’s eyes misted over as he fought back tears.
    ‘My father used to be a soldier. Some bad men killed him and burned down our village. They hurt my mother and my sisters. And they killed my brothers . . .’
    Lupus responded solemnly, his own father’s death suddenly raw, as if the younger boy’s revelation had ripped away a long-hardened layer of scar tissue.
    ‘My father was killed by barbarians too. I live with my granddad now, but Arminius looks after me most of all.’
    The two boys were silent for a moment, before Mus spoke again, wiping away a tear that was trickling down his cheek with the briskness of a child who