Read Online Up From Hell by David Drake - Free Book Online Page A

the Crow; he’s a hand’s breadth taller than I am, and there’s few enough I could say that about—and said, “We brought a woman too, Chief. She’s a noble herself, but she says she was a prisoner.”
    The Crow tugged his left moustache. He had the face of a bird, but to me he was more of a hawk than a crow: thin and sharp, with eyes that saw everything. “Is there ransom for her?”
    â€œI doubt it,” I said, “but I didn’t really talk to her. She speaks Gaulish and I can pick my way through Etruscan, but we had a scrap at the villa where we found her and, you know, that put me out of thinking beyond the next step.”
    â€œRomans?” asked Orgetereix, putting his right hand on his sword pommel. “They claim they’re chief of all this region, you know.”
    â€œI leave politics to my betters,” I said, which made the Crow snort. I don’t swank around, but he knows me too well to think I’d call Orgetereix “my better” if I meant it. “We didn’t see any sign of Romans. This was a villa. I figured to take their stock and let the rest be, but they wanted to make a fight about it.”
    It had gotten close to evening but Galo had kept pushing on, talking about “the beautiful woman.” We weren’t out for women and anyway, Galo isn’t much interested in them most of the time. He has a good nose for cattle, though, so I let him take us farther than I’d planned to go that day.
    Galo can ride well enough, but he has to switch horses pretty often because of his weight. He’s got the chest and shoulders of two men despite his stumpy legs. Even the good one isn’t long enough for his big torso.
    He’d reached the top of the gentle slope we were climbing when he raised his hand to halt us, then waved me forward. The rest of the troop held up, checking their weapons soundlessly.
    I walked my horse up beside him to where I could see over the top of the rise. The villa was on a downslope even shallower than what we’d just climbed. There was a good-sized sheepfold to the left of the main building with huts for the servants beyond the fold. To the right was a barn with a shake roof; a servant with a long goad stood by the double door, but the last of a file of oxen was entering without needing encouragement.
    I turned, pointed to Matisco, and raised five fingers, then swept my arm around to the left. He immediately led his squad through the brush on that side. That would put them behind the huts to round up the servants when they started to run.
    Like I’d told Segolestes, I wasn’t out to take slaves. I’d sooner have locals doing the dog work, though. My boys appreciated it, and it left them free to deal with anything that happened to come up.
    We didn’t know this territory, and I’d heard the rumors too: that the Romans were going to stop us from taking the contract from the king of Syracuse. They were welcome to try, was how I felt about the Romans; but that didn’t mean I wanted to stumble into a hostile army with just my troop of twenty.
    It didn’t take long for Matisco to get into position—we all knew the drill. He whistled and I brought the rest of the troop up and over.
    I headed for the barn with three men. Seven more under Heune took the sheepfold, and Galo had the rest to use as the business started to play out. There was a four-wheeled wagon under a shed beside the barn. It would be handy for hauling the big jars the locals use to store food and wine.
    Servants started shouting and running. The fellow with the ox goad looked like he might want to try prodding me with it. Holding the reins against the shaft of the javelin in my left hand, I howled and swung my sword overhead in a circle. He dropped the pole and ducked into the barn, pulling the door shut behind him.
    It couldn’t be locked from inside, of course. I jumped off my horse and stuck the