The Great Bear: The Adarna chronicles - Book 3 (15 page)

Martius exchanged a puzzled look with the others around the brazier; most looked equally confused.
 

All except Wulf, who leaned forward, his face intent as if deep in concentration, ignoring everything around him.

Lucus sighed and opened his eyes wide. “Thank the gods! Uh, it’s gone now. Must be somethin’ wrong with me ears.”

Something in Lucus’s actions put Martius on edge, his words were too clear.
He is not drunk.
 

Wulf shot to his feet. “Rise! Iron men, rise!” His eyes were wide. Spittle flew from his mouth. “Rise!”

Metrotis reached out an arm as if to pull Wulf back whilst the others looked on in shocked bemusement. Villius snickered into his goblet.

Slowly and deliberately, Optuss stood. His head turned left then right, as if seeking something, eyes unfocused… then he stopped and returned to his normal, passive stance. He remained on his feet, but otherwise acted as if nothing had happened.

“Rise, fools!” Wulf exhorted. He threw his arms into the air repeatedly, as if willing them to comply. “
Rise!
”

The hairs on the back of Martius’s neck rose. He stood without thought. His muscles tightened. Energy flowed through his limbs as primal instinct forced a reaction. “Weapons!” he shouted. “Wake the camp. Sound the alarm, now!”

But it was too late.
 

Out of the shadows, from behind the command tent, six figures stepped into the firelight. They attacked without a sound.

One struck Martius in the chest. He sprawled to the ground and gasped for breath, heavily winded. He scrambled to his feet and drew his sword – a sword of Optuss – its white pommel glimmered in the firelight. The smooth white handle felt warm to his touch despite the chill of evening. His vision narrowed yet somehow his senses heightened.
 

In the centre, near the fire, the giant Wulf stood silhouetted against the blaze as he wrestled with an assassin. To Martius’s shock, the Wicklander fell as if he were no more than a child. The attacker turned to Optuss and paused for an instant before lashing out at him with an empty fist. Optuss made no effort to dodge the blow and staggered back from the force of it.

What has the strength to knock Wulf from his feet? The speed to land a blow on Optuss?
It seemed impossible.
Move, you idiot!
Martius raced at the nearest attacker, who was looming over the prone form of Metrotis, and slashed at the back of his head. The man turned lightning fast, raising an arm as if to ward off the blow. Martius’s sword sliced through the arm and it tumbled away into the night, spraying blood in a wide arc. It was a wound that should have stopped the man in his tracks – fatal within minutes – but the man showed no sign of pain; instead, he grabbed Martius’s sword arm with his other hand.
 

At the attacker’s touch Martius’s shoulder erupted in spasms of pain. Lights flashed before his eyes. An almighty crack sounded in his ears. A flash like lightning crossed his sight. He fell to the ground, his sword slipping, forgotten, from his hand. His teeth clenched as his body quivered, racked by sharp, vivid pain.

The attacker stepped towards Martius, blood no longer gushed from the stump of his arm, the flow impossibly halted.

Martius scrambled back, desperately trying to control the spasms that wracked his body.
You are going to die.
It was inevitable. There was no hope, no way to prevail against such strength.

The light of the fire lit his attacker’s face.
His eyes are red
. It could not be true, surely just a trick of the light. Then the light of the fire glimmered across the man’s face once more.
Blood red.
There was no white to the eyes; the orbs seemed painted crimson, the colour of death. Martius steeled himself for the end. His back arched as another agonising spasm struck him like an aftershock. Out of control, his heels dug furrows into the soft grass.

The red-eyed attacker leapt, snarling, upon Martius’s chest and drew back a fist for the killing blow, his eyes gleaming vermilion doom.

A sword blade sliced through the attacker’s head below the ears, abruptly ending the snarl, leaving the bottom jaw perfect and intact, still attached to the neck as the rest fell away. The decapitated body fell on Martius. Blood poured onto his shoulder, coating him in gore. Conlan stood over him, the sword of Optuss gripped tightly in his hand, a look of rage and shock adorning his face. Blood dripped from the blade, the blood of a demon, perhaps.

Martius fought to rise but tremors still shook his body; his muscles would not obey, stubbornly flaccid and weak.
 

Another attacker sprinted towards Conlan.

Conlan is not fast enough.
Even with a sword of Optuss, Martius doubted that Conlan could resist. Every fibre of his being fought to stand, to aid his young saviour, but he simply flopped back to the earth, his body wracked by fresh spasms.

 
Conlan turned to face the attacker, his movements smooth and graceful, a practiced soldier of the Empire. For a split second, he seemed to pause, an imponderable look upon his face. Then he threw the sword of Optuss away.
 

“Optuss, come!” Conlan shouted, and the power of his voice, infused with fear and desperation, echoed through the night.

Time slowed for Martius, as if he observed events from afar, unable to interfere, unable to influence.

The sword of Optuss arced ponderously through the air, its potent blade shimmering in the firelight.

A demon tackled Conlan to the ground, he was lost from Martius’s sight.
 

Martius focused on the sword as it span through the air. Nothing else seemed important now. Conlan might be dead. The world might have ended. But the sword flew on as if it could defy the inexorable pull of the earth, as if it could defy anything.

It will not reach
. Realisation struck; the sheer audacity of what Conlan had attempted.
Gods, he has sacrificed himself!
Given up his life in an attempt to wake the sleeping fury within Optuss.
 

“Optuss.” Martius intended to shout but it emerged as a creaking groan.

Optuss stood by the fire, implacable as marble, apparently immune, seemingly indifferent, to the chaos around him.

The sword span through the air. If Optuss did not react it might hit him; surely it could cut his flesh as easily as it might any other man? Martius recalled seeing Optuss lying face down in the mud after the battle at Sothlind. He was preternaturally fast, supremely strong, but vulnerable nonetheless.

“Optu-” Another spasm rocked Martius, but, somehow, he managed to keep his eyes fixed on the blade and the immutable man beyond.

At the last instant, Optuss’s head flicked towards the sword. Martius thought he saw an expression – was it a frown? – cross the flawless features.
 

Apparently without effort, Optuss smoothly caught the sword and, using its impetus, completed a swing which sliced through the neck of the nearest assassin. Moving with effortless speed he dispatched another with a bone-crunching blow to the base of the spine, then danced away to stab another, that wrestled with Wulf by the fire, through the heart.

Martius could only gaze on, in awe and growing horror.

Within a few heartbeats, the enemy all lay dead and Optuss stood, placid as ever by the fire, like a sculpture cast from the mould of a god. His sword finally returned to his hand, Optuss stood, his face blank. The flickering firelight glinting across his immaculate features.
 

Martius heard shouts, the sound of running feet; help was coming. The world began to blur.
No…
He knew what was happening but he was powerless to resist, his body refused denial. As he lost his grip on consciousness, his final view was of Optuss, towering and sublime in the firelight.

CONLAN ROLLED GINGERLY TO his feet. His chest heaved with exertion and stress.
I’m alive
,
how am I still alive?
 

The answer stood before him, firelight from the brazier reflected in his face. Only the splattered blood that coated Optuss marred his perfection; it also served to bolster his glory.
 

Perhaps you’re more demon than god.
 

Around Conlan, the camp was in chaos, men ran in all directions. Urgent shouts sounded from all quarters. Officers, scattered here and there, desperately tried to restore order to the chaos.
 

Conlan took a breath; his chest ached where his attacker had landed upon him.
Only an idiot would throw his sword away!
But the tactic had worked. They were alive, for now.

Martius lay on the ground nearby, his eyes closed. “General?” the word slipped from Conlan’s mouth like a plea.
You can’t be dead. I saved you. Please, by all the gods, you can’t be dead.
“GENERAL!” He ran to Martius’s side, slid to his knees and rested a hand on the great man’s chest. There was no sign of life. He shook Martius’s shoulders. There was no response. He rested his head on Martius’s chest, listened intently, but the chaos of the camp drowned out all sound. Panic rose, its icy tendrils gripped his soul, threatening to engulf his senses, drown out all reason, but then the dull, reassuring thump of a heartbeat, slow and steady, coalesced from the chaos.

“He’s alive!” Conlan shouted. At least a dozen men surrounded him; their faces reflected his relief and anxiety.

“Andiss, Dexus.” Martius’s stalwart servants had materialised from the night, armed to the teeth, looking like mercenaries, killers, their faces grim. There was death in their eyes, death for any who had harmed their master. “Carry the general to his tent, see that he is protected.”
 

What should I do?
In desperation, Conlan looked around the group.
Why are they all just standing there looking at me?
Then he realised, as legion father he was now the ranking officer. The men around him were trained to follow, just as he had been. “Jonas,” he said, looking to his friend. “No.” He shook his head, his thoughts clearing. He would need Jonas on the front line if this was a concerted attack against the legion. “Lucus, you are to guard the general. Gather your branch, assemble on the command tent.”

Lucus nodded dumbly and moved off, shock still registered on his face; he looked painfully young to be involved in such a nightmare.

“Andiss, Dexus!” Conlan called after the two men as they carried the flaccid form of Martius between them, his feet dragging along the ground. “Gather the rest of the household around the general’s tent.” Martius’s housemen made no reply; their concern for their master so great they may not have heard.
Leave them
, a calm voice in his mind counselled.
They know what they’re doing.

Conlan’s gaze flicked around the group, indecision clawed at his soul like a cancer, threatened to overwhelm him.
What would Martius do?
The voice in his mind asked, and, somehow, he knew the answer.

“Jonas, gather the troops.” Conlan pointed to the ground at his feet.

Jonas frowned. “But…the perimeter –”

“Has been breached. Gather all you can find. We will assemble and form square right here in the centre.”

“But Conlan, the men on the ramparts…”

Conlan remembered Martius’s words: ‘
I am responsible for the death of thousands of men, Conlan
,’ the general had said as they walked in Veteran’s Park, ‘
a fair share of them were our own
.’

“They may be dead already,” Conlan snapped. The words echoed like an accusation through his consciousness, but there was no home for the guilt they would engender if he survived. He felt the terrible loneliness of the leader; surrounded as he was by his own men he had no one to turn to but himself. “We have to consolidate. Gather the men. All you can find. They will form square on us.
Now
, Jonas.”

Jonas gazed into Conlan’s eyes for a moment, then nodded tersely and moved away, shouting orders as he went.

A scream echoed across the camp, it seemed to come from the south but Conlan could not be certain.

“Father Conlan,” a low voice whispered in his ear.

Conlan turned to see Villius standing at his shoulder, the proctor’s face was flushed.

“Sir,” Villius pitched his voice low, “perhaps we should clear a killing ground?”

Conlan nodded. The pressure of his inexperience weighed down on him. Martius must have been mad to appoint him to lead. Surely Villius would be better? “Tear down the tents!” he shouted to the men nearby. “Quickly now! Fifty yard radius!”

Almost immediately, the tents began to fall, their design – as with so many imperial military objects – so efficient that only one cord was pulled to collapse the whole.
 

Within three minutes, over a thousand men surrounded Conlan and more trickled in every second to take their place in the shield wall. Those without shields fell back to the rear with whatever weapons they had managed to salvage in the chaos. Discipline held – just – and Conlan felt a stab of pride at the resilience and professionalism of the Phoenix Third.

Jonas ran through the ranks and stopped before Conlan, sweat glistened on his forehead; he took a moment to gather his breath. “We have most of the men mustering to the centre, sir,” he reported, stiffly formal in front of the rest of the legion. “The others will be with us soon.” He paused, looked around quickly, as if to ensure no one was in earshot. “It’s chaos out there,” pitching his voice low. “Looks like we’re being attacked on all fronts. Conlan, you were right, the perimeter has fallen. I don’t know how many men we have left. This could be it.”

Conlan nodded grimly. Half the legion might have been lost in a handful of minutes. Maintaining morale was now the key priority – some of the men had already begun to exchange nervous glances. He looked at those around him; Villius, outwardly calm but for his ruddy cheeks; Jonas, an excited gleam in his eyes, appearing eager for the fight despite his breathlessness; and then Optuss, standing between Wulf and Metrotis, his white sword still grasped in one hand, blood congealing on the blade. Conlan’s attention fixed on the weapon, a thought scratched at the back of his mind, then hammered, howling for attention, upon the wall of his consciousness.