"Up the Wall" - читать интересную книгу автора (Friesner Esther M)

Home and haven of heroes."
"Arr, that's just recruitment blabber." Caius waved it all aside. "Lot of fine talk, all of it slicker than goose shit, just to rope in the young men as are half stupid, half innocent, and t'other half ignorant, no offense meant. Once in a while he manages to gammon a few of the local brats into uniform, but mostly it's sons of the legion following in their Da's footsteps because a camp upbringing's ruined 'em for honest work stealing cattle. No, the Ninth's not what she used to be."
"When, I do wistful wonder,
Was this, thy lonesome legion
More than a muddle of men
Prowling the piddling plowlands,
Wandering the Wall's wide way?"
"Wozzat? Oh, I get yer. Well, truth to tell_" Caius leaned in even closer and nearly rested his elbow in the honey "_I haven't the foggiest. See, mate, used to be the Ninth was as fine a lot of pureblood Roman soldiers as ever you'd fancy_and didn't our commander just! But then, well . . . you know as how things have this narsty way of just . . . happening, like?"
"Fate do I fear not.
Still, circumstances stun stalwarts.
Here, have more honey."
Caius did so. "Like I been saying, what with the wild upcountry folk the Ninth was first sent here to deal with, always on the march, camp here today, there tomorrow, try to keep the Celtic chieftains in line or even leam to tell 'em apart one from the other, and what with the odd carryings-on back home in dear old Roma Mater, inside the city, out in the provinces, up 'crost the German frontier with them as must be yer kissin' cousins, Saxons and Goths and that lot, well, in comes one rosy-fingered dawn and gooses our then-commander with the fact that there ain't no orders come through from Rome or even Londinium to tell us arse from elbow. No orders, mate! You know what that means to a professional soldier and bureaucrat like our commander?"
"No, that knowledge I know not."
"Small wonder you would, you being a hero and all.
Stand up for yerself, do what you like, go where the fancy takes you. But regular army? We don't dare take a shit without proper orders to wipe off with after. So when there wasn't none coming through, we dug in where we was, up by the Wall, took up with the local ladies, bred our boys to the Legion and our girls to bribe any tribes we couldn't beat in a fair fight, and we waited." Caius rested his face on one hand, forgetting it was the one he'd been using to dip into Ursus' helmet. "We're still waiting, man and boy, father to son, can't tell you how bloody long it's been."
The barbarian tilted his helmet and slurped out the last of the plundered honey. He wiped his gooey whiskers on the back of an equally hairy forearm, then said:
"Strangely this strikes me as scoop-skulled.
Why do you wait and wonder?
Beneath your brows lurk brains or bran?
Sit you thus centuries? Shitheads."
Caius made a hand-sign that translated across any number of cultures. "Look, mate, so long as our bleedin' commander, latest in a long line of Imperially appointed shit-heads, has got more than three like old Junie there to lick his tail and say please, sir, what's for afters? it's no use running off. There's precious little as is to keep the men occupied. Hunting down a deserter'd be a rare treat for any of 'em. And it's as much as me life's worth to speak up and say let's break camp and head south like sensible folk, try to scare up some news from Rome as isn't staler than week-old pig piss. See, so long as we're up here, our commander's the law. Go south, and he could find out that the only thing he's got a right to control is his own bladder, and not too strict a say over that. So if a man's fool enough to suggest a move off the Wall, 'Orders is orders,' he'd say, 'and traitors is traitors. And we of the Glorious Ninth know what to do with traitors, don't we, Junie, me proud beauty?'"
"Crudely crucify the creatures," Ursus supplied.
"You're not just talking through yer helmet there, mate," Caius agreed. "Speaking of which, it's in a proper mess.
Give 'er here to me, and you go fetch that boar-sticker of yours out of the log. We'll have a proper wash-up_me for the helmet, you for the blade, before she rusts silly, doesn't anybody ever teach you barbarians respect for a good bit of steel?_then we'll go back to camp and get some oil for the pair of 'em. Supper's ready, and if we let it go to the bad, Junie'll be off crucifying us left and right again."
"Dares he the deed to do,
Sooner my sword shall steep its steel,
Blood-drinker, blade and brother,
Entirely in his entrails."
Caius took up the helmet, beaming. "You're a decent sort. Bee-wolf, for a bleedin' hero." He toddled down the slope to rinse out the helmet.
As he squatted to his task in the shallows, a tuneless ditty on his lips, a loud, wet, crunch hard by his right foot made him start and keel over into the murky water. The helmet went flying out over the fenland, landing with an echoing *plop* in a nearby pool.
Junius Claudius Maro leaned hard on the eagle standard and observed the helm's trajectory with a critical eye. "Now you shall not escape punishment, Caius Lucius Piso."
"Punishment?" Caius spluttered, scarcely feeling the cold water that seeped through his clothes. Rage kept him warm. " After you was the one as scared the bracae off me, sneaking up and chunking that whopping great standard into the sod like you was trying to spit me foot with it?" He picked himself up out of the shoreline muck and hailed the hummock. "Oi! Bee-wolf! You saw him do that, didn't you? You saw as it wasn't no fault of mine that your helmet_"
But Bee-wolf was not paying attention to the angry little Roman. He stood on the high ground, honey still gumming his beard, and stared out across the fen to the spot where his boar-crest helmet had gone down. He made no move to yank his sword free of the fallen log where it still stood wedged in the heart of the ruined beehive. Something in the barbarian's sudden pallor and paralysis stilled Caius' own tongue. From the comer of one eye, he saw that Junie was likewise rapt with terror. He did not want to see what had frightened them so, but, at last, look he did.
The fen bubbled. The slimy surface heaved. Slowly, seemingly as slender as a maiden's arm, a "snakey form broke the face of the stagnant water. On and on it came, climbing every higher into the clear air, until Caius thought that there simply could not be any more to come without ripping reality wide open and sending all the world plunging down into the gods' own nightmares. He was only half aware of the eagle standard toppling over into the mud as Junie whirled and fled. This sudden movement galvanized the lazily rising length of serpentine flesh. The spade-shaped [head] darted within arm's length of Caius, ignoring the petrified little man as if he were part of the scenery. A maw lined with needlelike teeth gaped open, impossibly wide, and sharp jaws clamped shut around Junie, hauberk, shriek, and all.
"Oh, I say!" Caius exclaimed, as his comrade's scream knocked his own tongue free. Automatically, he stooped to retrieve the fallen standard, then turned to the hummock and bawled, "There's your bloody fen-monster. Bee-wolf, old boy! Do for 'er now while she's busy with poor Junie and you've got surprise on yer ..." His words dribbled away.
The high ground was bare, the hero nowhere to be seen.
"Coward!" came Marcus' angry shout from the direction of camp. "You pusilanimous, recreant, craven, dastardly, caitiff_Oooooh, you rabbit, come back with Cai's sword!" The commander's secretary came stomping into sight of the fen just as the monster commenced reeling in a struggling Junie.
Caius heard Marcus's yips of shock blend nicely with Junie's continued screaming and blubbering. The dragon was imperturbable, allowing the bulk of his still-submerged and leisurely sinking body to drag his prize into the fen.
Caius watched as span after span of sequentially decreasing neck slipped past him. It would not be long before Junie followed, down into the fen, without so much as a last vale for his old messmate.
"Bloody foreigners," Caius grumbled, and, raising the eagle standard high, he brought it crunching down as hard as he was able, just at the moment when the monster's head came by.
BONK.
The dragon froze, its wicked mouth falling open. Junius flopped out. He wasted no time in questioning deliverance, but hauled his body free. He was breathing hoarsely_no doubt he had a rib or two the worse for wear_but he was able to pull himself a little ways up the shore.
Caius smashed the beast in the head again with the eagle of the Ninth, putting all his weight in it. He and Junie looked at each other. "One bloody word out of you about damaging legion property, Junie," he shouted, "and it's back in the fen I'll toss you myself!"
"Not a word, not one!" Junie wheezed, pulling himself farther up the bank. Marcus came running down, holding his tunic well out of the mud, and tried to hoist the injured man without soiling himself. It was an impossible endeavor.
"Cai, leave that horrid creature alone and come here right now and help me with Junius!" he called. "Go on, let it be, it's had enough."
"Stop yer gob, will you?" Caius was panting with the effort of using the legion standard as a bludgeon, but he lofted it for a third blow anyhow. "If this bugger's just stunned, I'm nearest, and I'll be twigged if I'll be the tasty pud to tempt an invalid monster's palate when it comes to. Not just to keep your tunic clean. Missy Vestal!"
"Well, who died and made us Jupiter Capitolinus?" With a peeved sniff, Marcus slung Junie's arm around his neck, letting the mud slop where it would. "If you're still speaking to the plebs, Cai, we'll be back in camp." He hustled Junie out of sight without waiting to see the eagle descend for the third time.
The beast had been hissing weakly, but the final smash put paid to that. There was a sickening crunch that Caius felt all the way up his arms to his shoulders, and then it was no longer possible to tell where the monster's skull ended and the bogland began. Caius wiped his sweating brow, getting honey all over his face. "That's done," he said, "and damned if anyone'll credit it. Goewin won't, for one; not without proof, and that means the head." He felt for his sword, then remembered that not only had he left it in camp, but the barbarian had made off with it.
"Vesta's smoking hole!" He thrust the standard deep into the sodden ground, cradling it in the crook of one arm as he raised cupped hands to lips and bellowed, "Oi! Marcus! Fetch me back Junie's sword when yer at a loose end, there's a dear!" He waited. Not even an echo returned.
Caius called again, then another time, until he felt a proper fool. He left the standard rooted where it was and trudged back to the camp, only to find that all of it_tent, packs, gear, cookpots and dinner_was gone. In the failing light, he spied two rapidly retreating figures headed in the direction of the Wall.