New Barbarians (1986) by Kirk Mitchell by Unknown Author

Author:Unknown Author
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-08-28T00:00:00+00:00

17

Entering the mountains of the Indee was an ascent into a vernal unreality. Caligula led the string of exhausted riders and ponies up a gorge shaded by sycamores and cypresses. A creek trickled from pool to pool, and in the emerald glassiness of each were the reflections of the turreted and crenellated walls of the chasm. These ramparts suggested to the martial eye every battlement imaginable, and Germanicus sensed that he was being admitted into a fortress capable of withstanding even the most persistent siege. As they paused to water their mounts for a second time, he asked Alope, “Why did the Indee of your grandmother’s time fight below on the open desert when they might have harried the Aztecae from here—perhaps for years?”

“Ours was a proud and foolish war chief who wanted to prove that the Indee could fight in the manner of eagle knights.”

“But, even in defeat, certainly thousands of your people could have hidden here. ”

“No, there has never been enough food in one place.”

“But the vastness—”

“You see our lands through the eyes of a Roman farmer and wonder why they lie fallow. You think they are empty.”

“Well, yes. I’ve asked myself why some of these fertile terraces haven’t been planted with maize. And the hillsides there could be cleared for orchards.”

“To eat like a Roman, one must Romanize the land.”

“Is that so bad?”

“We will leave the world as it is.”

An hour later, as they walked their ponies up a steep slope along a path that had grown as vague as a game trail, Alope remarked, “I have never known so many warriors to be here.”

Germanicus peered around him through the dense conifers. He checked the sun-dappled earth for footprints. He saw no sign of men. “How do you know this?”

“The dinos bushes are stripped of their berries. Warriors eat them for strength.”

Four days of hard riding had left him with little sufferance, and Germanicus found himself annoyed at this habit of hers to rush to conclusions. He decided that it was time to acquaint this self-assured new barbarian with the rudiments of Alexandrian logic. “Is it possible that a large influx of birds ate most of the berries?”

“It is,” she admitted. “That happened once when I was a girl.”

“Is it conceivable that the shrubs, of their own accord, set forth less fruit this year?”

There were no sounds except the thudding of hooves over a carpet of pine needles and the sigh of a thin breeze crossing the treetops. “Perhaps,” she whispered at last.

When Caligula called a halt to rest the ponies after the worst of the climb, Germanicus took Alope by the hand and led her upslope into the forest. “Let’s see all these warriors who have been eating the dinos berries.”

They had not gone far through the shafted sunlight and thickets of young firs when the pair encountered a man sitting astride a log, cradling a pilum in his arms. A slash of yellow paint fanned out from the bridge of his nose and across both cheeks, giving his eyes a maniacal defiance.

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