Eagle in Exile by Alan Smale

Author:Alan Smale
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2016-03-15T04:00:00+00:00

They rowed steadily north past Shappa Ta’atan in the mists of dawn with their oar blades muffled. From their lookout positions at the bow and stern of the Concordia, Sintikala and Marcellinus watched carefully. Even if the sentries on the ramparts of the walled Mizipian city studied them just as intently in return, none challenged them, and no alarm was raised.

No Cahokian warrior held a weapon, but all had them ready to hand. If the Shappa Ta’atani attacked, the Concordia would try to outrun them, and if that was impossible, they would fight to the last man; this they had sworn at their winter camp several hundred miles downriver. If they could not go north to Cahokia and beyond, their lives meant nothing, anyway.

Such desperate measures had proved unnecessary. Shappa Ta’atan faded from view behind them. They would not fight today.

Aelfric was taking his turn at the oar, and his eyes briefly met Marcellinus’s. On this return journey the two Romans had spent little time together, Marcellinus strategically favoring the company of his family and his old friends of the First Cahokian, Aelfric that of Chumanee and the younger warriors.

Alongside Aelfric, Kimimela and Hurit rowed, too. At thirteen and sixteen winters, respectively, neither had the reach or strength of an adult, but they were shooting up like beanpoles and insisted on pulling their weight. There were no passengers on the Concordia; Marcellinus, Sintikala, and even Chumanee and Taianita took their turns as readily as anyone else.

As far as they knew, the Romans of the Legio VI Ferrata were not following them upriver. If they had chosen to, it would not have been hard. The Concordia was making poor time against the early spring current. By Marcellinus’s best guess they were averaging less than ten miles a day, and those were river miles. The way the Mizipi snaked and bent, a squad of determined men on foot would have no difficulty keeping up with them even through undergrowth and swamps. As for the quinqueremes of the Sixth, they would make shorter work of riverine travel. Since a quinquereme might be crewed by three hundred oarsmen and a couple of hundred marines, a single warship would easily be sufficient to overhaul, engage, and defeat the Concordia.

They kept a watch as best they were able. When Isleifur Bjarnason and Mahkah were not scouting ahead, they often paddled downriver as far as a day or two behind, alert for pursuers or for any intelligence they might gather. Few traders were abroad at this time of year, most having returned to their homes for the winter, and so their main source of news had dried up.

The land was huge. They were several months north of the Market of the Mud and still well over a month from Cahokia. But Marcellinus somehow had managed to heed Aelfric’s advice and had grown comfortable with the knowledge that on any given day, anything at all might await them around the next bend and anyone might come up on them from behind, and to be at peace with that.

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