Without paying too much attention to the other animals which were circling around him, the African giant held out his hand to the girl who was on the ground and helped her to her feet.
“Are you all right?”
“I am, Sibiam,” she said with a smile, “but you kept us waiting a little too long.”
“I took the opportunity to use your demonstration to explain a bit of technique to the young ones,” the giant replied, pointing to a group of people who were standing beside the wagons as if they were watching a show.
“Thank you very much,” said the blind man, coughing saliva.
Suddenly he sensed a shadow in movement, but Sibiam acted before he had time to move. The dog arrived precisely at the moment he had calculated it would, and was astonished to find itself floating in the air like a bird. The bubble of air the animal’s flight produced sent Jago sprawling on his backside.
“Indolent but timely.”
Ignoring his friend’s comment, Sibiam grinned.
“What does the sibyl say?” the manipulator of metals asked. “How will the battle go?”
“If she’s not already run away, I imagine that means it will go well,” said Jago, trying to get to his feet.
“You fool,” protested Dryantilla.
“Not as foolish as those who are accompanying us,” the blind man said. All around they could see the slumped forms of soldiers who coughed, wriggled or vomited. And they were lucky ones: many others no longer moved at all, and a thin layer of snow already covered their corpses. Their faces still wore expressions of astonishment at their death. None of the survivors, however, seemed to be paying too much attention to that settling of accounts between men and gods. Mainly because it was invisible to their eyes.
“What would it have cost him to change route?” The girl put her hands to her head. “Fortunately, it’s over.”
“If you say so I believe you,” sighed Sibiam. “But I wouldn’t bet my salary on it.”
Two dogs came at him, their iron collars gleaming as if they had been recently polished. The first leaped at him as the second darted as his calves. Sibiam remained immobile, raising only an eyebrow. The two animals disappeared over a rocky ridge before they could reach him.
“I’m joking. I trust my favourite sibyl blindly,” he said with a smile that showed his very white teeth.
The blind man sighed and turned to something hiding in the darkness. “So?”
“I’ve decided you can pass,” said a voice. Arawn emerged from the darkness and became visible again. “But at a price.”
“What?” asked the African.
“Whatever it is, I imagine it will involve me as usual,” sighed the blind man with a shrug.
*
The scene that was unfolding before the eyes of the tribune was a somewhat singular one. After almost suffocating because of the solid fog which had crept into his lungs, Septimius Vegezius had managed to get back to his feet and was now leaning against a tree and trying to get his breath back. Most of his men were still in great difficulty. The others were dead.
The gelatinous darkness had descended on the soldiers like some damp, lethal mantle, pulverising even the most basic rules of military discipline, but at that moment, punishing his men was the last thing the tribune had in mind. On the snowy ground around him there were at least twenty corpses.
He glanced rapidly around him in search of his horse, but could not find it in the general chaos. He whistled, but from his mouth, which was full of snow, only an inaudible hiss emerged.
The prefect, on the other hand, had managed to recover his mount and was now stroking its neck to calm it. Victor Felix’s attention was focused on what was happening in front of his startled eyes. The blind man and the girl were gesturing towards something or someone that none of them could see. The woman was speaking and her friend was waving the staff he had been using a few moments previously to support himself.
Suddenly the girl found herself flat on her back on the ground as if though the wind had blown her off balance.
Septimius Vegezius took a few steps forward to see the scene better.
In that moment, a large muscular man with skin the colour of burned wood had jumped out of one of the covered wagons and positioned himself in front of the girl. His clothes were a shapeless heap of skins and fur and he didn’t appear to be armed, but in his left hand he held a very large shield that bore no symbol and which he now raised as though to protect the woman from something. No matter how hard he tried, the tribune could not see who the man was fighting against.
As if that were not enough, while those three singular individuals were moving, talking and fighting in the fog, several of the passengers of the wagons, who until that moment had never shown themselves to the rest of the expedition, had gathered behind them. Young individuals, dressed like mountain dwellers, who gave cries of encouragement to their companions. Then, suddenly, the three fighters of darkness had become still and the blind man had taken a few steps then started talking again.
But Septimius Vegezius would have been ready to swear on his ancestors that there was no one there for him to talk to.
*
“A day of your life. One day only.” Arawn took several steps toward the blind man. The white dogs had reappeared at his side as though nothing had happened and had begun to bark again, straining at the chains that their master held. The giant gestured to the corpses of the legionaries. “Compared to that, I am not asking you for much.”
“No, don’t do it,” protested Dryantilla. “Don’t accept.”
“We can solve the matter in another way,” Sibiam broke in, his muscles tensed and his hand glowing as though he were clasping a fluorescent stone between his fingers.
The blind man tried to calm them.
“No, we cannot. And you both know it.”
“Good,” said the satisfied giant, “it is always exciting for a god to deal with a wicked human.”
The blind man knelt and uncovered his head. The girl rushed over to him, threw herself to the ground beside him and squeezed his shoulders.
“Please don’t,” she pleaded. “It’s a risk you can no longer afford to take. Tell me one good reason why you should do it.”
The blind man turned to her. His empty eyes moved feverishly for a few moments, and then they stopped and she almost felt that he was staring at her.
“Because someone did the same thing for me a long time ago.”
“You can’t carry these feelings of guilt with you for ever. This story must end.”
“Yes. And it will end. But not today.”
The blind man turned his attention back to the giant and nodded his head.
Arawn’s chest swelled with satisfaction and he stretched out his free hand, slowly straightening fingers which looked like gnarled roots reaching out in search of energy.
The impact was devastating. Jago dropped the staff and grasped his chest. Being struck by a stone fired by a catapult would have been less painful. For an interminable instant his breath failed him. His face turned purple, and a trickle of drool descended from his lips to below his chin, coagulating into a filament of ice.
He struggled with all his strength to fight the excruciating pain, his muscles stretching like bowstrings while a myriad of tiny invisible scorpions trained their stingers along his spine. He tried to scream to release the excruciating pain, but all that emerged from his lips was a cloud of breath which immediately froze into vapour. He closed his eyes.
“Human energy has an excellent taste, but that of a necromancer is always special because of its ability to absorb humours in such a… profound way,” said the giant, as if he had just gulped down a pint of good beer. “Very well. Now you can pass.”
He turned around, yanked at the chains of his numerous dogs and then disappeared into the darkness accompanied by the sound of their barking, which was soon lost amidst the howling of the wind.
The solid darkness loosened its grip, freeing men and animals. The luckier legionaries got back to their feet and even the horses stopped their skittishness.
“Why?” whispered Dryantilla, shaking her head.
The blind man was still on his knees. He turned slowly, blinked and then collapsed face down in the snow, the darkness swallowing him – and only him – up.
*
When Septimius Vegezius saw the blind man fall to the ground he decided to intervene, but before he managed to reach him the man’s companions had gathered around his body and, for the first time, the tribune was able to take a good look at their faces. They were young and with their bright eyes and wild hair they looked like anything except mysterious creatures or demonic beings. There were men and women of various stature and age, and even some dwarves, their faces modestly covered by the hoods of their cloaks.
“Give him some room,” cried the dark-skinned giant, “let him breathe.”
The circle opened. The blind man had been turned over on his back. He was breathing. With difficulty, but he was breathing.
The girl was kneeling and stroking his face slowly, chanting something that the tribune could not understand.
There was the sound of footsteps in the snow and many heads turned. The crowd opened up further and the prefect Victor Felix stopped at the feet of the unconscious young man. He exchanged quick, complicit glances with the steely-muscled colossus and with the girl and then got down on his knees and took the blind man’s head in his hands. At that moment Jago opened his eyes and gave a wan smile.
“Now,” he stammered softly, “we can pass.”
Felix relaxed and nodded to his servant.
“Come on, get back to your places,” said the servant, waving his arms “There is nothing to see here.” A few moments later, the crowd had dispersed and they had all returned to the wagons.
Septimius Vegezius bent over and grasped his thighs, then straightened up and kicked the trunk of a tree to vent his anger. What was supposed to have been just another escort mission had cost him at least twenty legionaries and he would have to explain what had happened to his superiors. He knew it wouldn’t be easy and he knew that there would be a price to pay.
The wind made its voice heard and Vegezius took it as an invitation. He had had enough of that story: they would think about rest only after he had led what was left of his men out of that gorge.
Murena was waiting on the other side of the mountain, and fear would give their feet wings.