“Then it was on us. I tried to get to my net, but it just came straight at me. I heard the others screaming as I went down. I guess I must have passed out for a while.”
He grunted as one of Vonones’ men tightened the sodden bandages that attempted to hold the man’s middle together. “It just was too fast,” Rebilus muttered peevishly, and he seemed to fall asleep.
Lycon sighed and straightened—none too steady himself after hours of slogging through a confusion of tunnels. This was worse than the scene on the grain barge. The lizard-ape had worked in haste, but in a span of only a few minutes it had killed or maimed more than twenty people here—many of them onlookers drawn by fatal curiosity to see what so many armed men were doing down in the sewers. No one here knew where the lizard-ape had gone after the slaughter.
Night had fallen.
“I told you the sauropithecus was clever,” N’Sumu said. There almost seemed to be a note of gloating to his attitude.
“Damn thing doubled back, let us chase after these worthless dogs across half of Rome.” Vonones sounded too worried to snap back at N’Sumu, and Lycon was too exhausted.
“We’ll pick up its trail again from here,” the hunter said wearily.
“And chase it down into the sewers again,” gibed N’Sumu. He seemed to be deliberately baiting Lycon.
“You’re in charge!” Lycon snarled, turning on the Egyptian. “You tell me what to do!” Perhaps he had held his bared blade a little too close to the strange priests throat, he thought afterward.
“I did warn you,” N’Sumu smiled. “Lacerta! Your men! Here!”
The tribune had already stood scowling at the three men, trying to decide on a course of action that would not make him lose face again. The Imperial guard had seemed to materialize upon the scene of carnage an instant after the sauropithecus had disappeared.
N’Sumu pointed a long finger at the hunter’s chest. “Arrest this man. I will not tolerate insubordination!”
Lycon lunged for the Egyptian, but the hulking German guards were already reaching for him. Something—a rock or a mailed fist—crashed against the back of Lycon’s skull, and he pitched headlong onto the bloodied pavement. An instant later he was jerked back onto his feet, to dangle like an unstrung puppet between a pair of the giant Northmen.
“I’ve waited for this, Greek!” sneered Lacerta. The tribune stepped close to drive a fist into the beastcatcher’s belly. “Tie him behind your horse!” the tribune shouted to the pair of men holding Lycon.
The Germans looked at one another, uncertain as to the precise intention of the order, but unwilling to become overly concerned about what some little Italian said—even an Italian with putative control over their lives. One guard shrugged; then both began to stride away toward the horse-holders beyond the circle of bodies.
“Wait a minute!” said Vonones, stepping toward the tribune swiftly enough that another of the guards pinioned him from behind. Caught like a cricket in a spiderweb, the Armenian continued to shout: “That’s not going to help anything! Without Lycon, we’ll never catch the lizard-ape! Master N’Sumu, please tell them we need Lycon!”
“Shall we take the merchant as well?” Lacerta asked pleasantly.
“Not just yet,” said N’Sumu in fluting, silvery Greek. “This one may yet prove useful to me—now that he knows the penalty for insubordination. Do with the beastcatcher as you please.”
Lacerta nodded, and the guards who had paused with Lycon between them now proceeded toward the horses again. “We’ll take him to the Amphitheater,” the tribune decided aloud. “The Greek won’t be lonely there, because we’ll soon find a nice cell for his family as well. They can all discuss what our lord and god is going to choose to do with them when he hears about this latest slaughter.”
The breath caught in Vonones’ throat. The German holding him spun the animal dealer around and pushed him, hard, in the opposite direction from the retreating guard troop. The crowd had thinned enough that Vonones had no one to grip to prevent him from falling over one of the corpses lying ten feet away.