Casca 49: The Lombard

  CASCA

  THE LOMBARD

  This is a book of fiction. All the names, characters and events portrayed in this book are

  Fictional and any resemblance to real people and incidents are purely coincidental.

  CASCA: THE LOMBARD

  Published by arrangement with Eastaboga Entertainment, Inc.

  Publishing History

  2018

  Americana Books

  A Division of Lonewolf Group Inc.

  Copyright 2018 Eastaboga Entertainment, Inc.

  Cover Design by John Thompson

  All Rights Reserved

  Including the rights to reproduce this book or portions thereof

  In any form or format without permission.

  For information contact

  Americana Books

  P.O. Box 210314

  Nashville TN 37221

  ISBN 978-1513640501

  Table of Contents

  TONY ROBERTS

  PROLOGUE………………………………………………………4

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO………………………………………………...10

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN…………………………………………………94

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  EPILOGUE

  Other books by Tony Roberts

  TONY ROBERTS

  My mother was my unlikely route into becoming a Casca fan. On one shopping trip she bought me a copy of Casca 3: The Warlord. 3 was not a great place to start but I devoured it anyway, loved the character and the sense of history made real. Then followed 13 years while I collected the original series; without the help of the internet. Then what to do, the series was over. I started to write my own Casca novels, and set up my website www.casca.net, building a worldwide base for Casca fans and contacts.

  My first Casca novel, Halls of Montezuma, was published in 2006. The Lombard is my twenty-third novel in the series.

  I also write three other series of books, a high fantasy series ‘Kastania’, another fantasy series ‘Dark Blade’ and a fictional rock band biopic called ‘Siren’. Details of all these books can be found on my author website www.tonyrobertsauthor.com

  I live in Bristol, with my partner Jane and a fluffy cat called Cassia.

  PROLOGUE

  The tramp of thousands of feet filled the air of the north Italian plains, sending up clouds of dust that billowed about their owners, coating them in grime and filth. The five thousand men didn’t care, they were going home with full pockets and bellies and they were content.

  One of them differed from the rest, he wasn’t going home. He was, in a way, leaving it, but he no longer looked on Italy as his home, for he didn’t have one, not since the day his life had been changed forever on Golgotha outside Jerusalem nearly 520 years before, when the Curse had been put upon him by the dying Jesus, a Curse condemning him to live forever until the Second Coming.

  Casca Rufio Longinus tramped along with the rest, his scarred face lowered and expressionless, his mind drifting, allowing him to eat up the miles as the Alps approached in the distance. He was leaving behind an Italy devastated by twenty long years of war, the once rich land now deserted, the once teeming cities emptied of much of their populations. It was no longer an Italy he’d remembered and grown up in, or served in the legions for.

  His face was covered in a long beard, the same as his comrades, for they were Lombards, long beards, the Germanic tribe that prided itself on facial hair and took its name from that physical feature. They had been part of the final victorious battle against the Goths that had finally shattered the reign of the barbarians over Italy and now the Byzantines ruled it, for what it was worth. Casca hoped they thought it was worth the countless lives it had cost. The Byzantine general Narses, once he had won the fight, had released the Lombard mercenaries, paying them generously and sending them on their way with an escort of imperial troops just to make sure they did go home and not distract themselves by a bit of tourist indulgence in the defenseless Italian countryside.

  Casca scowled at remembering Narses; the aged eunuch was a mortal enemy of his, and it was his one regret on leaving the Empire, that he had not killed the man. For Narses was a member of the Brotherhood of the Lamb, that secret sect that had tormented him throughout the centuries, and Casca had declared war on them over the past twenty years or so. Yet he had never been able to destroy them. Yes, they were weakened and were now at a secret location, probably known to Narses but there was no way he could get at the man.

  Casca drew in a deep breath and sank back down into his mind-numbing world where he thought of nothing. Best to leave that all behind, and go live in the wilderness beyond the Alps and hope for a cleaner way of life. Perhaps he would be cleansed by living out there for a while. It certainly beat the intrigues of Justinian’s Empire that was for sure but Casca knew deep down that wherever life took him, conflict was never far away.

  And out there in the untamed forests of Germania lurked other dangers which he would have to face.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Danny Landries leaned back and cracked his aching fingers and knuckles. The flat screen in front of him flickered and the familiar face of Carlos Romanos appeared, distorted and beset by the occasional line running across the screen, but un-mistakingly the scarred face was Carlos’s.

  Danny pressed the left mouse button and a crackling sound came through his Harman/Kardon speakers set either side of his pine desk. “Hi Carlos,” Danny greeted the face, “what can I do for you?”

  Carlos grunted and a moment later the sound came to Danny. There was the inevitable delay between picture and sound but Danny was used to these sat-com transmissions, particularly as the technology still had a way to go before being perfected. Besides, Danny’s set-up was hardly kosher, he was piggy-backing on a military channel which could get him in deep shit if they found out, but Danny had been careful in the setting up and was certain the military was unaware of his illegal hijacking of their frequency.

  “I need papers for entry into and a visa for Pakistan,” Carlos answered.

  “Pakistan? You leaving Afghanistan then?”

  Carlos smiled a moment before wagging a finger gently at the screen. “Tut tut Danny, no names, no pack drill, you know that.”

  Danny grinned and nodded at the face. “Okay, I deserved that, stupid question. You need funds released from the account?”

  Danny had been behind the setting up of an internationally registered company – Lamos Imports Inc, using the first part of Danny’s surname and the latter part of Carlos’s – that funded Carlos’s activities around the world and also set up any papers Carlos needed so as to avoid any governmental interest in what he was doing. The money was raised partly by Carlos’s earnings as a mercenary and partly from Julius Goldman’s royalties from the adventure books he had written about Carlos’s life. Only Goldman and Danny knew that the character was real. Goldman was a sleeping partner in all this, not wanting to be involved in the illegal activities Danny was involved in but happy to send the earnings from the books to him. In return Danny sent him the latest stories from Carlos by audio DVD, burned on from his PC after Carlos had downloaded the latest installment.

  “No Danny,” Carlos said, “I have enough with me here. Send the papers by courier to our PO Box address in Kabul.”

  “Kabul? You got it. Add
ressed to you personally?” Danny asked that because Carlos had a number of identities and wondered which one he was using there.

  Carlos grinned. “No, to Charles Roman.”

  Danny stifled a laugh as Carlos spoke in the flat tones of a Britisher. So Carlos was going in as a Brit, rather than a Yank. He wondered how many accents Carlos could ape, but his talent for languages was unbounded so he guessed he could pass for a South African in Johannesburg if necessary. “What cover?”

  “Security advisor for the Brits on a business trip to Islamabad. The Pakistanis want their internal security beefed up what with the Afghans crossing into their territory and the Indians sending sabotage units across from Kashmir.”

  Danny nodded. “Will do. I’ll make the visa valid for a month. Any longer than that and they’d get suspicious.”

  “Agreed. Now,” Carlos waved a small object at the screen from his end, “the latest installment of my life story for you and the good Doctor Goldman to hear. I’ll download it in a second, so be ready.”

  Danny clicked the relevant icon from his toolbar and up popped the software he needed to receive. “Ready. What’s it about this time?”

  “Ah, remember the time I told you about my time in Italy and Byzantium fighting the Brotherhood? Well, this is what happened after Narses won the war.”

  Danny nodded, eager to listen to the story. Like his late father, he had gotten hooked on the adventures and impatiently awaited the next part of a two-thousand-year saga. “What shall I label it as?”

  Carlos bent forward, obviously setting up the transfer of data at his end, then looked up for a moment. “Oh, why not ‘The Lombard’?”

  “Okay, Lombard it shall be.”

  Carlos had one more thing to speak of. “So, how’s Hayley? About to give birth, isn’t she?”

  “Yes. Any time now. She’s huge; she’ll be glad to get it over with, you know. You going to be over here after Islamabad?”

  “Sure am. Got a break from the mercenary work I’ve set aside for October, so I’ll be over and seeing you and the new-born. Will drop you a line when I’m Stateside.”

  Danny nodded, then watched the percentage figure creeping up as the file was downloaded, shooting up fast as the piggy-back connection was a big capacity sucker. One good reason why he had chosen a military channel. As the 100% figure was reached Carlos nodded. “Okay, it’s through. Breaking connection.”

  “Okay, good luck Carlos,” Danny said, then the screen went blank. He clicked a few icons, then inserted a blank disk into his DVD drive and copied the sound file onto it. He then cut all internet connections and clicked on the DVD drive. A moment went by whilst the file was activated, then Carlos’s voice came through the speakers, deep, hypnotic, but tired. Always so tired.

  Even though he was not there, Carlos’s voice had the effect on Danny of pulling him into a trance, and he lay back deeply into his black leather swivel chair and took in the words.

  “The Alps were crossed easily, for the tribesmen knew where they were going, to their homes in the Danube valley, and I was going with them, to a place familiar, a place I’d last seen when Attila had been buried….”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Casca leaned on the haft of his long spear and surveyed the green valley that had just come into sight. His lungs heaved after the effort of climbing that last damned ridge, the last remnant of the Alps. Here he felt different, freer, away from the cloying suffocating world of civilization. The air felt fresher. Heck, he had too many memories of traveling round these parts with Glam, that long dead bulk of Germanic warrior, but those memories were good…

  He turned back and waited as the small straggling group of men descended to the point where he was standing, next to a large pine tree. Two of them, brothers, came up to him and grinned. “Ho, Casca! Here it is, our valley. The village is down the bottom along the watercourse. The villagers will be waiting our return. You must stay!”

  Casca grinned back at the speaker, the elder of the two, Gundomar, and nodded. “Gundomar, I am tired of walking up and down damned hills. It would be good to feel the furs of a bed around me!”

  Gundomar laughed, his gap-toothed mouth wide. “Aye! And some good ale inside you too, better than goat-piss Roman wine!”

  Gundomar’s brother, Emanic, agreed. “That wine gives me a bad stomach. I must have good ale and fast!”

  Casca slapped the younger man on the shoulder and followed the two down the slope through the trees, three men amongst a group who had split off from the main body a day or so ago. Once across the mountains they were no longer in the lands of the former Goths. Now they were home, or what passed for their lands, for they had only recently won them from other barbarian tribes, and even here things were not settled. Talk was of a danger from the east, but Casca thought this may be a long-held terror of the Huns who had come from that direction and had scattered so many tribes in their wake. Now the Huns were gone and other tribes had settled in their place and the lands of Germania were once again echoing to the voices of many tongues.

  There was a great deal of bracken at the edge of the trees where the villagers had cleared the forest, then they were walking across the plowed fields and headed for the settlement, a collection of wooden huts and long halls surrounded by a palisade of wooden stakes. Smoke drifted lazily up out of the roofs of the huts where holes had been left for that purpose, and just outside the palisade there stood a few fenced pens where pigs and goats could be seen.

  The land close to the entrance was denuded of grass and rutted, which spoke of frequent use, then a few children were running out and shouting in glee at the approach of the men. Casca stood back and allowed the Lombard warriors to be greeted by their friends and families, and for the next few moments the air was full of excited voices. He looked beyond the opening to the village and saw that the huts were little different to those he’d lived in many years before in Ireina’s time. At her memory, a pang filled his heart and a brief surge of anger surfaced, but he suppressed it and idly watched as a kitten stalked a rooster; the kitten wasn’t very old and still had the over-large head the very young tend to possess. The rooster ignored the kitten until the stalking creature was a foot or so from leaping onto its back, then turned and advanced at a threatening run. The kitten bounded off as though it had been set on fire.

  Once more unmolested the bird resumed its scuffing of hay that lay round the edge of a hut, pecking at dropped ears of corn or wheat. Casca wasn’t sure what the food was but obviously the rooster liked it.

  “And who is this?” a woman’s voice drew his attention back to the collection of people close by. He focused on a woman of about twenty years or so, wearing a dirty linen dress of white topped with a brown apron, and on her head rested a piece of cloth that kept her fair hair tucked away. She was holding a wooden basket full of eggs and obviously had been collecting them from the chicken run that must be inside the protective wall.

  “He fought with us against the Goths,” Gundomar said proudly, and stepped alongside, putting an arm round Casca’s broad shoulders. “And he fought like a real bastard!”

  “But he has no name?” the woman inquired, a smile in her eyes.

  “Casca,” the mercenary said. “And you are called?”

  “Gretasuntha,” she replied, still smiling. Casca couldn’t help but smile in return.

  Gundomar punched Casca lightly on the arm. “Betrothed to Karlobad, that ugly looking goat over there,” and he pointed to a black bearded man hammering enthusiastically on a wooden stake, driving it deep into the ground outside one of the open fronted buildings that looked like a smithy’s.

  “A lucky man, then,” Casca commented, drawing a blush from Gretasuntha.

  “Oh ho! Sweet talker, eh?” an older woman chuckled. “Best be wary of Karlobad, he’s the village smith and would beat you senseless for looking at his woman like that!”

  Casca grinned and turned to Gundomar. “So, where’s the ale you promised us all?”

  T
he others laughed and, with a hearty shove into his back, Gundomar propelled Casca towards the village entrance, following close behind. The children chattered excitedly, running every way possible, including into each other on one occasion, and they were chased off by the scolding tones of the older woman who Casca learned was Gundomar’s mother. Casca caught one last glance at Gretasuntha’s swaying hips as she made her way over to the hut nearest the smithy, but Gundomar saw it and leaned close to his ear. “Forget her, she’s spoken for. But if you’ve got fire in your loins, then I can show you some suitable ones who would be all too keen to put that fire out with their bodies!”

  Casca smiled. “First a drink, then food and a place to rest. I need to get these stinking clothes off.”

  “What stink?” Gundomar was like many Germanic tribesmen. A healthy man was one who sweated freely. “You’re not one of these odd people who wash? How would you keep yourself waterproof by washing the dirt away? And the cold, it gets very cold here in winter, not like your warm Italy, I can tell you! Here we are men, not flowers!”

  Casca sniffed deeply. True, the cold here was different, but he’d been Lord of Helsfjord many years ago, many leagues to the north where the cold cracked the sap in the trees, and if he’d survived that, then this was nothing. Besides, a nice bed of furs and a warm young woman to share a bed with was enough in these lands.

  Gundomar led Casca and the other returning men to a long hut in the center of the village. There were openings at either end and inside the deep cavernous interior a few flickering torches provided the only illumination, so it took a few moments to get used to the darkness.

  Long wooden benches lined the interior and stout poles supported the high roof. Flapping of wings high up out of view told of nesting birds, probably pigeons, and the floor was carpeted in hay. “The feasting hall,” Emanic said unnecessarily, looking round.

  “Aye,” his brother said with enthusiasm, “tonight we celebrate our return, and get so drunk we’ll ooze out of our own asses!”