The Great Bear: The Adarna chronicles - Book 3 (6 page)

“Haven’t heard of him.” Conlan frowned. “At the academy they say that the southeast is an endless steppe. South of Selesia are the Indomius Mountains, mostly hill tribes and mountain men. Tough lands, tough men, not worth conquering. It’s a long way through the valleys, but the nomads came before.”

Jonas nodded. “The nomads got through back then because there were so many of them. The hill tribes were scared to attack. Same must have happened with the Wicklanders. Who really knows what lies south, boss?” He rattled the map again.

Conlan shrugged. “Alright, so we have a map. How do we know it isn’t made up?”

“We don’t. Metrotis said that’s why this map isn’t common knowledge. This Josephis was laughed at when he got back. He even wrote a book about his travels. Said he found some weird island or something too, but people thought he was mad. Metrotis thinks there must be some truth to it because Josephis mentions people that sound a
lot
like the Wicklanders in his journal. He even says they share an ancient kinship with the Basking Islanders.”

Conlan reached out and took the map from Jonas’s hand. The area Jonas had pointed to was in the south west, a land of many inlets and fjords that spread out like fingers. “How far is it from there to Selesia?”
 

“Difficult to tell. But if you believe the map it would be about seven hundred miles.”

Conlan peered over the map at Jonas. “What makes a nation travel seven hundred miles?”
What do the Wicklanders have to be afraid of?

Jonas shrugged. “Don’t know, boss, but I reckon that Wulf knows.”

Conlan felt the hair on the back of his arms stand up. Wulf had the freedom of the house now, ever since he purportedly saved Martius’s family. Wulf usually stayed close to Martius or Metrotis, often speaking to them in broken Adarnan, gesticulating as he did so.
 

Conlan was not sure if Wulf recognised him from the battlefield, but he could not wipe the image of the barbarian from his mind, stepping forward out of the throng and coolly braining Father Yovas’s horse with his war hammer as if chopping wood for the fire. If not for Dylon throwing a rock, knocking the man senseless, he suspected he would be dead now at Wulf’s hand. Conlan's face flushed as he recalled the look the huge warrior had given him as he charged to attack – a rictus grin of joy – seeming to relish the thrill of battle.

“I think you’re right,” Conlan said. “But if he does know, then he’s keeping it to himself. Either that or he’s only told the general.” He handed the map back to Jonas and sat down on the cot bed. “To be honest, I’m more concerned about the other one.”

Jonas leaned towards Conlan, his piercing blue eyes searching, bright with enquiry. “Are you sure it’s him? Are you sure it’s the bear? The one from the battlefield?”

Conlan sighed. “I’m certain.” He raised his hand and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I told you.”
 

“Explains what the general did with him then doesn’t it?”

“Yes it does, but I don’t understand why he would keep the man a secret. He must know that someone will talk about the battle, about what we saw… There’s something strange about the man, this ‘bear’. It’s like he isn’t really
here
, you know? Like how some people get when they’re old? Vacant; gone. He obeys Metrotis like a dog would, barely takes his eyes off the man.” Conlan looked down at his hand, slowly clenched his fist. “The man that we saw, the ‘bear’, was deadly and utterly remorseless. He could take half a cohort out without breaking a sweat – you saw it…”

Jonas nodded, “Half a cohort, and the rest. Never saw a warrior fight like that, except for the other ones… you know…” He paused, a mischievous twinkle lighting his eyes. “The other gods.”

Conlan smiled wryly and shook his head. “We’ve been over this. They’re not the
gods
, Jonas.” He glanced at the copper bracelet around Jonas’s right wrist, adorned with text from the scriptures, a sign that Jonas was strong in his faith. A sign to the gods – and the Sender when his time came – that he had been pious, a good, devout man and a member of the Sacreun faith, the oldest and purportedly original denomination of the faith.

“The great bear, Conlan,” Jonas said earnestly, shaking his head. “You know it’s the ancient sigil of Lord Terran.”

Conlan snorted. “Jonas, just because someone has a bear on his breastplate it doesn’t make him the king of the gods.”

Jonas puffed air through his cheeks, his exasperation clear. “Yes, you’re right, boss. But
think
about it again: I’ll grant you a bear on its own. But a bear, a bull and a hawk all in one place? And a red hawk at that?”

Conlan wished he had faith. He truly envied those that believed the actions they took in life would shape their fate in the afterlife. He could not remember when he had decided that there were no gods, which lead to the inevitable terrifying conclusion that there was no afterlife. As a child, his mother had always ensured that they attended proper services, the proper worship given to the right god at the right time. The celebration of All Gods’ Eve, he recalled, had been a time of great happiness in the household with his father often given special leave to return from barracks to his family. When his father lay dying of consumption, his mother had taken him to pray daily to Syke, the twin faced goddess of healing and death. Then, as the illness progressed, the fever and night sweats accompanied by blood-thickened sputum, they had turned even to Lord Terran himself, begging for succour and relief.

Relief had come only in death for Conlan’s father. One morning Conlan had been woken by his mother’s pitiful wails. His father had looked peaceful in the end, relieved to be free of all worldly pain; and the image of his face in that moment was forever engraved on his son’s psyche.

It was not the death that first shook Conlan’s faith, nor the manner of it – many died from consumption, it was a fact of life. It was the circumstance, the cruelty of the timing. His father had lived for one year after his retirement from military service. One year in which he should have looked for the small farmstead that he had dreamed of buying with his pension. One year in which he had promised himself and his family that he would deliver them the dream of escaping life in the city. Instead, he had fallen ill almost immediately on his return. Conlan knew his father must have suspected he had developed the wasting disease. When the coughing started, he must have been certain. Conlan later learnt that his father had forbidden his mother from spending the pension on vain efforts to find a cure. She had done it anyway, hiring a steady stream of priests and charlatans who claimed they could cure the disease. Usually provided they were paid, of course.

“There are no gods,” Conlan snapped. “They don’t exist and they never did.”

Jonas fixed him with an uncharacteristically compassionate gaze. “I know that’s how you feel, but I think different, you know that, and so do most other people in the world. We can’t all be wrong y’know.”

Conlan was abashed, guilty for trying to force his negative thoughts on his friend, for not respecting his faith. “Look. I just mean that they can’t be
the
gods; forget that I don’t believe in any of it. Just use your brain: if they were the gods, if that man...” Conlan heaved a sigh. “Do I need to remind you he is in the house at this moment? If that man is Lord Terran, surely he would have been able to defeat the whole horde on his own? He wouldn’t have needed help from anyone and he certainly wouldn’t have ended up face down in the mud at the end of the battle.”

Jonas produced a thin-lipped smile. “Boss, I’m just trying to open your eyes here. Like I said, just the bear is odd, but three of them together?”

Jonas had explained his theory to Conlan once before. The bear was the Lord Terran; the bull was Toruss, god of war; and the hawk was Syke, she of two aspects – goddess of healing and red god of death.
 

“Yes,” Conlan conceded, “I know your theory. But it’s only you Sacreuns that associate the gods with animal totems.”

“True, but that’s just because we’ve gone back to the earliest scriptures. We haven’t allowed our faith to be diluted with everything that came after, or be twisted and changed like the others have. Besides, all denominations worship Lord Terran as the great bear, it’s not just us.”

Conlan knew that he would not win the argument. Jonas’s faith was not blind, but it was pure to the point of innocence. “But –”

Abruptly, a young legionary flung open the tent flap.

“Sorry to disturb you, sirs,” said the man, barely out of his teens by the look of him. “But the general would like to see you. Father Conlan, he has ordered that we prepare the legion. We are to march immediately to his estate in the south.”

THE SUN WAS JUST beginning to heat the morning dew, producing a fine haze that rose up from the grass to greet the dawn. There had been a red sky last evening as the legion set up camp. Martius had known many red skies at night. He was not looking forward to the heat of the day that they inevitably preceded.
 

Battle dress does not lend itself to comfort at the best of times
, he reflected, as his horse plodded steadily at the front of the snaking column. In the heat, armour could quickly become unbearable. It was not himself that he worried for, or even the legion; all had been trained to endure far worse. Any legion could easily tolerate forced marches of thirty miles a day or more for short periods. It was the servants and other members of the household, those who would not normally join a marching legion that might not withstand the pressure.

Martius gazed down the column and checked on Ursus, Accipiter and Elissa – not for the first time. He felt a surge of pride at the sight of his children, almost grown to full adulthood. Elissa had insisted on riding, not satisfied to sit in the carriage with Doctore Nessius, who tended her mother with his assistants.
 

It had been weeks and Ellasand remained unconscious, Martius, as ever, fought back despair at the thought of her. Doctore Nessius had served the Felix family for over forty years and Martius knew none better. The old medic said that he had seen people regain consciousness after similar lengths of time, and Martius clung to his words, allowing them to override all logic. Ellasand
would
survive, he was certain. He had to be certain.

His boys had recounted the tale on the evening of the attack. Ursus, pale from blood loss, pushing through the pain as Doctore Nessius stitched the wound in his arm. Accipiter, normally the brasher of the two, shaking visibly as shock set in, eyes full of sympathy for his brother, and fear for his mother, in equal measure. The tale they told was confused at first, jumbled by stress and grief, but eventually Martius managed to distil the truth, with some help from Elissa, who wandered between the prone form of her mother – lying deathly pale on the bed – and her younger brothers. Elissa’s eyes were tired, but attentive nonetheless to any need, filling in the gaps and embellishing her brothers' explanation.

When the first attacker appeared in the doorway, Elissa had screamed; it was her that Martius heard. Ellasand had moved forwards, pushing the boys behind her, calling for Elissa at the same time, and then asking the man what he wanted. The assassin had moved straight for Elissa without saying a word, taking hold of her before the others could react, making way for more assassins to enter and quickly force a gap between them. Ellasand had not waited on the outcome, but charged the first man and wrestled with him, receiving a blow that knocked her staggering back to the bed. The twins had reacted in unison, simultaneously holding the attackers at bay to protect their fallen mother whilst trying desperately to find a way to reach Elissa.
 

The boys had admitted it was not until the fight was over that they realised their mother was unconscious. To their minds, it had been mere seconds between the first assassin appearing and Wulf, Optuss and finally Martius himself coming to their rescue. Wulf fought bravely, the boys had recounted, although they could only recall a confused jumble of images. The impact he made when he entered the room; their confusion over seeing a stranger coming to their aid. Optuss, however, had left a lasting impression on them. Optuss had appeared behind their attackers and stopped, pausing for what must have seemed an age before, apparently without sound or expression, he calmly dispatched both men. One with a cut through the back of the neck that almost beheaded him and the other with the return swing as he glanced around, a clean swipe to the neck, straight under the chin. Both men were dead in a second, and Optuss – his objective seemingly achieved – returned to his previous state, eyes unfocused, sword hanging limply at his side just as Martius had found him.

Martius had no idea why Optuss saved his sons, but he was grateful to the strange, empty man. Somehow Martius was certain that Optuss would not have saved Wulf, who would have died but for his own timely arrival and intervention.
 

Martius had sat for hours in the days that followed, watching Optuss, trying to make a connection with his consciousness, but if there was a change in the man, he could not see it. Optuss obeyed basic instructions, mostly from Metrotis but also, occasionally, from others. The only demonstration of free will he had made was in saving Ursus and Accipiter. Optuss remained an enigma that scratched around inside Martius’s head most days, an irritating puzzle that had to be solved. What was he? What was his purpose? On more than one occasion, Martius had meditated on the possibility that the man was simply acting. Alternatively, perhaps he was suffering from some sickness of the mind like those that afflicted many in the Empire, sicknesses that were often misinterpreted as demonic possession or evil witchcraft by an overzealous and superstitious population.

Martius glanced back again and checked on the carriages. Both swayed precariously as they negotiated large ruts in the road. The foremost carried his beloved Ellasand, along with the doctore. Martius spent his evenings with her in the gloom of the cabin, speaking to her of the old days before Elissa and the boys were born, of the journey they were taking and of politics and life in the Empire that they saw on the busy roads near the capital.