The Legion - Scarrow Simon - Страница 72

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Cato's lips pressed together in a thin line for a moment before he responded through clenched teeth. 'Yes, sir.'

He backed away and sat on a rock that overlooked the cut steps. He watched sullenly as the archers entered the tomb, then Macro descended the stairs, followed by Hamedes. Cato cleared his throat and called down.

'Take care, Macro… Watch your back.'

Macro looked up at him briefly and grinned, then he passed out of sight. The legate followed Hamedes into the tomb, then came the rest of the auxiliaries and archers, several of them carrying lit torches. The last man, bearing a coil of rope over his shoulder, entered the tunnel and the bright glow of his torch wavered and faded and then there was only the faint scrape of iron-nailed boots on the floor of the tunnel and echoed comments which gradually faded away. Cato sat still for a moment, uneasy with the burden of his fears and suspicions. Then he glanced irritably down at his arm in the sling and slowly eased it free and attempted to flex it. At once there was a red-hot shooting pain through his shoulder joint and he groaned and stilled his arm. When the pain had receded, he eased the sling back on and looked down at the pitch-black entrance to the tunnel. Whatever happened in the tomb, there was nothing he could do about it now. Without Cato being aware of it, his left foot began to twitch in an agitated rhythm as he settled back on his rock and waited for Macro and the others to return.

The passage was wide enough for two men to walk abreast, but the incline was steep and Macro found that he had to step cautiously down the pitted rock surface to avoid slipping. By the wavering and flaring light of his torch and the one ahead of him held by the archer, he could see that the walls of the tunnel were painted with detailed depictions of the native gods and kings. Sometimes the kings, wearing the combined crowns of the upper and lower Nile realms, were making offerings to the gods. In other images they were leading their armies to war. The images were interspersed with the incomprehensible but strangely beautiful script of the ancients that Macro had grown used to seeing on the religious buildings that dotted the province. The air in the tunnel was warm and damp-smelling and the further they went down into the rock, the more the walls and roof seemed to close in about him. It was an illusion, he told himself. He had never liked enclosed spaces and the fact that Ajax and his men lay in wait ahead only added to the burden of apprehension that settled on Macro.

They had gone at least a hundred paces when the floor of the tunnel evened out slightly and made the going easier. Macro glanced back to make sure that the others were not too bunched up, and then gave the order for the party to halt. The echoing footsteps slowly died away and the tunnel fell silent.

'What is it?' Aurelius whispered. 'Why have you stopped?'

'To listen, sir.' Macro touched his finger to his lips and then cocked his head to one side and stood still, straining his ears to detect any sound of movement from ahead above the rasp of his own breathing. At first there was nothing, then a faint rustling and soft whispers that made the hair rise up at the back of Macro's neck. He eased himself forward, past the archer holding his bow ready. The lead man held his torch out in front of him and was staring intently down the tunnel. The gently wavering hue cast by the still torch lit up the way ahead for a good twenty paces. Then, just as it faded into the darkness, there was a black outline as the tunnel gave out on to a wider space.

'Seen anything moving down there?' Macro whispered.

'I thought so, sir.'

'Thought so?' Macro growled. 'You did, or you didn't. Which?'

The archer swallowed. 'I-I did, sir. Sure of it.'

Macro nodded, and shuffled back past the second archer. 'Be ready to shoot the moment you see any of 'em.'

As he returned to his original place in the line, Macro passed on the order to draw swords and make ready, then he hissed at the leading archer to continue down the tunnel. The line of men moved cautiously towards the opening. The glimmer of the torch revealed that their path continued downwards but there was darkness where the chamber opened out with a pit on either side. As Macro emerged into the space, he raised his torch and looked round. The builders of the tomb had cut out a cube, roughly forty feet in each dimension, through which a ramp-like walkway passed at an angle. The precision of the angles and dimensions appeared eerily perfect. On either side of the ramp there was a drop of about twenty feet, and by the light of the torch Macro could make out the spoil and rubbish that had been abandoned in the tomb by successive robbers and the curious who had dared to explore the darkened tunnel over the centuries.

'Watch it!' the leading man cried out as he ducked. An arrow whirred over his head and struck the next man in the right arm. He cried out and let go of the arrow string and his shaft skittered across the ramp. He staggered back, and the men behind him instinctively ducked down or moved aside as they anticipated another arrow.

'Watch it, you fool!' Aurelius's voice cried out behind Macro. As he turned, there was a scrabbling of boots and a desperate shout of panic.

He glimpsed the legate teetering on the edge of the ramp, arms flailing, his torch flaring madly, then he fell into the pit, the flames of the tumbling torch illuminating his swift descent, broken by a heavy thud that cut off his cry.

'Shit!' Macro snarled, as he braced his feet and looked over the edge of the ramp. By the light of the torch guttering close to the legate, Macro saw Aurelius lying spreadeagled on his back. His mouth was open in a soundless scream and his eyes blinked rapidly as blood, dark as pitch, spread out behind his head.

Another arrow shot up the tunnel, narrowly missing the two archers before it bounced off Macro's shield at an upward angle and clattered off the wall of the chamber. Macro quickly stepped past the wounded archer and lowered his shield to provide cover from the next arrow. A moment later there was a loud crack, amplified by the surrounding rock, as a second arrow struck Macro's shield squarely and punched through the layers of leather and wood as it lodged. He grabbed the torch from the leading archer. 'Get behind my shield and start shooting back!'

The man nodded and hurriedly plucked an arrow from his quiver, strung it, drew back and then bobbed up just long enough to release the shaft down the tunnel.

'Keep that up!' Macro ordered, and then turned to look up the ramp. The wounded archer was shuffling back along the line of men who had pressed themselves to the ground, and where the ramp entered the tunnel, they hugged the walls. Hamedes was crouched down a short distance behind Macro.

'What happened to the legate?' asked Macro.

'I don't know, sir. He was just ahead of me, then stumbled and must have lost his footing.'

'Right, well, we have to get him out.' Macro raised his voice and called back up the line. 'Pass the rope forward!'

There was a brief delay, during which another three arrows came flying up from the depths of the tomb, two striking Macro's shield while the third whipped past and splintered against the rock just beside the tunnel leading up to the tomb's entrance. Then the coil of rope appeared, passed from man to man until Hamedes took hold of it. Macro had already seen that there was nothing to tie the end to and he pointed back up the tunnel. 'Find an anchor man to tie it round his waist and then have four more on the rope to take the strain.'

'Yes, sir. Let me go down and get the legate.'

'No. You take my shield. I'll do it,' Macro decided.

Hamedes came forward, squeezing between the archer and Macro, and took hold of the handle. Macro grasped his shoulder as he gave him his orders. 'Move forward, nice and slow, like. No more than ten paces into the next section of tunnel. The archer goes with you. Keep harassing whoever it is that's down there taking pot shots. Clear?'

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