The object descended as regularly as if it were connected to a gear train instead of moving with a drifting, wind-shaken look as had the Summoners and even the water carts. The light blazed from its whole outer surface, twenty feet at least in length and broad though not particularly high sided. Because the light was so extensive, it smothered the shadows that it would have thrown if it were a point source of the same intensity. The shadings that gave life and individuality to a face, even in the bright sun, were erased. The three men looked like a flat painting of soldiers caught in the uncertainty that precedes death.
The object touched the ground, or came within a finger’s breadth of touching, just outside the cave mouth. Vibulenus climbed up the path to rejoin his companions. Flow rock, limestone dissolved and redeposited by water, gleamed in opalescent beauty on the upper surfaces of the cave, but the stone had been rubbed dull generations ago wherever it was within reach of a hand.
Helvius and his companions were gone, but the red transverse crest from a centurion’s helmet lay on the cave floor near the twist that carried the cavity out of sight.
Their eyes adapting (and reflections from neighboring stone surfaces) gave the Romans a view of the object, the vehicle, that had caught them. It was open-topped and held half a dozen figures — two of them from the Commander’s bodyguard, unmistakable in their hulking, iron-clad bulk.
Vibulenus passed the non-coms with two further crisp steps toward the vehicle. He braced as if reporting to a consul on parade and said, “Sir! We believe that three of our fellows were cut off by the enemy and took shelter in this cave. I beg a delay of the recall order for myself and the subordinates who are here under my orders so that we can rescue men who were wounded and confused. Until the third watch, sir, if you please.”
Midnight would be time enough. Ten minutes more, by Hercules, would have been enough without the Summoner’s interruption.
The light dimmed abruptly. The vehicle’s rounded sides still glowed brightly enough to illuminate the ground nearby with the intensity of a full moon, but the light was no longer a barrier intended to blind a marksman taking aim. Rectinus Falco got out by swinging his legs over the side.
The tribune with the Commander was dressed for parade: helmet and breastplate polished, the straps of his leather apron freshly rubbed with vermilion, and his crest combed to perfect order. He didn’t look as though he had just survived a battle, and in a way he had not. Falco had accompanied the Commander during this engagement as with all those in the past.
The last of the horses had disappeared — not died, at least not on the ground — ages ago, so many operations in the past that Vibulenus could not remember which one. There were always enough snarling carnivores to mount the Commander’s entourage, so Falco rode one of those and rode it with the same panache that he had shown from early childhood with horses.
And now he rode with the Commander in one of the guild’s incomprehensible vehicles. Not very different from riding in the ship itself, perhaps, but it was different in Vibulenus’ mind — and in Falco’s, he was sure.
“Throw down your weapons,” the shorter tribune ordered. “They’ll be gathered up later.”
Falco either read something or thought he did in the motionless figure of Clodius Afer, because he then added at a higher pitch, “None of you act like fools, now. Remember that there aren’t any restrictions on the guild’s weapons now that the battle’s been won.”
“Yeah, now that we won the fucking battle,” said the pilus prior in a voice as emotionless as the one he would have used to describe a brick wall.
Vibulenus had thought the non-com might set his sword down carefully in what amounted to an act of dumb insolence. Instead, Clodius tossed the weapon some distance behind him in the cave where its smeared, tell-tale blade clanging out of sight. He was not a man who stopped thinking in a tight place.