There was a clink from the darkness, metal on metal, and a murmur of voices made ghostly and unintelligible by the acoustics of the cave. The tribune opened his mouth to call further demands, but Clodius forestalled him by touching his cheek with the hand already resting on his shoulder.
The next sound was the one they had come to hear, the scrape of hobnails on slippery rock and the muttered curses of the men climbing back up the slope.
“A bull to Hercules for this,” said the tribune under his breath. Though the problem hadn’t exactly been solved yet. “I don’t like to think how the Commander’d react if he heard about a desertion.”
They thought the first silent flash was heat lightning, but then the little Summoner floated beneath the rim of the sinkhole and the light spinning on its top threw patches of blue against the walls instead of the empty sky.
“Return at once to the ship,” it called, its voice faint but recognizably speaking in the tones of the Commander. The illuminated swatches of rock grew fainter and broader as the beam’s rotation slid it along more distant curves of the wall, then snapped back to brighter immediacy.
“Return at once to the ship,” the Summoner ordered as it continued to descend toward the mouth of the cave.
“Helvius, wait!” the tribune cried as the faint blue reflection let him run forward down the slope. The figures he glimpsed thirty feet in front of him disappeared around a bend of the water-gouged corkscrew into the limestone. The forearm of one of the men was bandaged; the white fabric flashed like a flag charged with the dark smear of seeping blood.
“Return at once to the bzzrk!” said the Summoner as Clodius Afer drew and cut at it with a single motion and perfect timing. He was a good man with a javelin, thrust or thrown, but with a sword the pilus prior showed nothing less than artistry.
The little egg looked metallic, but it crushed like a pastry confection when Clodius caught it with his swordedge. The blue light rotating on top blinked off, but there was a bright flash of red that seemed to come through, not from, the casing of the Summoner. It crumpled to the ground, leaving behind it a glowing nimbus and a smell that combined sharpness with something that made the soldiers gag.
“It’s all right, boys!” the tribune shouted, plunged into darkness with the memory of a shadowed drop-off to halt him. Ahead of him faded the clattering boots of the deserters, more familiar with the footing or more reckless. “We’ve shut it —”
Not sound but a light froze Vibulenus’ tongue. Something drifted over the edge of the sinkhole the way the Summoner had, but this was huge and all ablaze with light as pitiless as the spear which had reached for Vibulenus’ eyes when he was a frog.
“Stand where you are!” ordered Rectinus Falco in a voice amplified into thunder.
As an afterthought or a false echo from the screen of light, the Commander added, “Gaius Vibulenus Caper, Gnaeus Clodius Afer, Publius Pompilius Niger: remain where you are or you will be counted among the number of deserters and treated accordingly.”
The harsh light glinted from sweat and bright metal on Vibulenus and his companions. They looked at one another because at first the lighted object was blinding. The notched edge of Clodius’ sword winked. There were steaming black smears across the blade where something like tar had been carved from the belly of the Summoner.
Moving slowly, though he could not be surreptitious in the glare that bathed him, the pilus prior shifted the weapon behind him and began to wipe the steel firmly against his mail shirt to clean it. That probably wouldn’t do much good, since the remains of the little device lay smoldering at his feet. Still, Clodius Afer had spent long enough in the army — and in life — to know that the best way out of an awkward situation was to deny that it had happened — even if you’d been caught with your cock rammed all the way home.